The term "hacking" in the 1980's became a buzzword in the media which was taken to be derogatory and which by misuse and overuse was attached to any form of socially non-acceptable computing activity outside of polite society. Within this context "hackers" were assumed to be the fringe society of the computing fraternity, mainly characterized as "youngsters" who did not know any better and who had obtained access to a technology with which they terrorized the world of communications and computing. To be tagged as a "hacker" was to portray a person as member of a less than acceptable group of near criminals whose activities were not be to be undertaken by the upright citizenry.

Definition:

Penetration testing, also referred to as pen testing or pentesting, is one way to assess the security of a computer system or network, also that of online computing systems. This process is carried out by simulating an unauthorized breach both by malicious outsiders as well as by insiders. The pentesting process generally involves a thorough analysis of the system in order to find out lurking vulnerabilities in it, which a hacker could possibly take advantage of.

These vulnerabilities could arise from downright negligence to lack of proper education on online security, hardware or software flaws, unknown or neglected technical glitches or just improper configuration of the system in question.

This entire analysis is done, taking the perspective of a potential hacker, keeping in mind how he or she may work to exploit security vulnerabilities lying dormant in the system. The security gaps discovered as the result of this analysis is then presented to the system owner, with suggestions on reducing risks in the future.