Term Definition: attack

A planned and methodical attempt to break or otherwise circumvent the normal operation of a running computer software program. Often malicious in nature, the concept of attacking computer software originated in the software hacker (A.K.A cracker) community whose members use various techniques to attack software systems, typically to circumvent security software and gain illegal entry to a host system. Examples of recognized attack techniques include buffer overflow, denial of service, resource constraint and Trojan horse. This term has subsequently been adopted by computer software testing professionals in discussing the methods by which they might expose potential bugs in a software system.