Which of the following describes the process of a rainbow attack?

The process of a rainbow attack is accurately described by the option related to computing pre-determined hashes and matching them with intercepted hashes. This technique involves the use of pre-computed tables known as rainbow tables, which store the hash values of many potential passwords. When an attacker intercepts a hashed password from a database or during transmission, they can quickly look up that hash in their rainbow table to find the corresponding plaintext password, effectively bypassing the need to crack the hash through brute force.

This method is efficient because it saves time by allowing attackers to leverage the stored hash values rather than re-computing hashes for each possible password attempt, making it a significant threat against systems that use weak or unsalted hashes. For optimal security, modern systems utilize salting and stronger hashing algorithms to defend against such attacks.