Final answer:
The best defense against rainbow table attacks is to use strong and unique passwords. Other defenses include using salt and using a slow key derivation function.
Step-by-step explanation:
The best defense against rainbow table attacks is to use strong and unique passwords. A rainbow table attack is a precomputed table of password hashes that an attacker can use to quickly crack passwords. By using a strong and unique password for each account, it becomes much more difficult for an attacker to use a rainbow table to crack the password.
Another defense against rainbow table attacks is to use a technique called salt. Salt is a random string of characters that is added to a password before it is hashed. By using a different salt for each password, even if an attacker has a rainbow table, they would have to recompute it for each salt, making the attack much slower and more difficult.
Additionally, using a slow key derivation function, such as bcrypt or scrypt, adds an extra layer of protection against rainbow table attacks. These functions are designed to be computationally expensive, making it more difficult and time-consuming for an attacker to crack passwords.