what do “hackers” mean by finding a “vulnerability”. It’s hard to understand how there can be a gap in code that grants that much access.

Question

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**Thank you guys for all the great answers I am enlightened. Computers are fascinating to me so this is a real treat!

In: 1007

Answer 1

It’s sort of like how people build houses and they put locks on the doors and windows and weatherstrip everything and make the roof watertight and they stand back and bask in their own triumph of engineering, satisfied that the building will keep out everything from hurricanes to bears.

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And then the ants come along.

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Hackers are basically the ants. They find small gaps that either people didn’t know about or dismissed as too trivial to fix, and then they exploit those gaps for gain.