cracking

n. [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.

