cracking

[very common] The act of breaking into a computer system; what a {cracker} does. Contrary to widespread myth, this does not usually involve some mysterious leap of hackerly brilliance, but rather persistence and the dogged repetition of a handful of fairly well-known tricks that exploit common weaknesses in the security of target systems. Accordingly, most crackers are incompetent as hackers. This entry used to say 'mediocre', but the spread of {rootkit} and other automated cracking has depressed the average level of skill among crackers.

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