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Software Engineering vocabulary · APIs, Networking and Security

Exploit

Meaning in software engineering, with examples

/ˈeksplɔɪt/nounCore term

In software engineering, exploit means: A piece of code or a technique that takes advantage of a vulnerability to make a system do something it was not designed to do.

In Turkish: istismar kodu, exploit, istismar

How it is used

Also a verb: attackers exploit a vulnerability, and the act is called exploitation. Advisories say whether a vulnerability is 'actively exploited' or has a 'public exploit', and either fact raises its patch priority.

Example sentences

  1. A public exploit for this flaw was released two days after the advisory.

  2. The attackers exploited an unpatched VPN appliance to get in.

Common collocations

  • public exploit
  • actively exploited
  • exploit a vulnerability
  • exploit code
  • exploit chain
  • vulnerabilityA weakness in software, hardware, a configuration or a process that an attacker could use to cause harm or to gain access they should not have.
  • zero-dayA vulnerability that is unknown to the vendor or has no patch yet, so defenders have had 'zero days' to fix it when it is first exploited.
  • payloadThe actual data carried by a request, response or message, as opposed to the headers and other information around it.
  • proof of conceptA small, quick version of an idea, built only to show that it can work technically before the team spends time building it properly.

This word in other fields

The same English word can have a different meaning in another field:

More terms: APIs, Networking and Security

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