Exam 312-50v11 topic 1 question 257 discussion

A computer science student needs to fill some information into a secured Adobe PDF job application that was received from a prospective employer. Instead of requesting a new document that allowed the forms to be completed, the student decides to write a script that pulls passwords from a list of commonly used passwords to try against the secured PDF until the correct password is found or the list is exhausted. Which cryptography attack is the student attempting?