A password cracking technique known as a "rainbow table attack" uses a unique table, or "rainbow table," to break password hashes stored in a database. Applications usually map passwords utilizing a method known as hashing rather than storing them in plain text. The password that a user supplies while logging in is transformed into a unique sequence of characters called a hash. Next, this hash is compared to the hashes kept on the server. The user gets authenticated and given access to the program if there is a match.