fuzzed

Fuzzed is the past participle of fuzz, used to describe something that has been made fuzzy, indistinct, or covered with a soft, downy texture. In everyday language, it can refer to surfaces or materials that have developed a fuzzy nap from wear or brushing, or to images and edges that have become blurred or grainy. The term can also be used metaphorically to indicate obscured or unclear details.

In computing and software testing, fuzzed data or inputs are generated as part of fuzz testing (fuzzing). Fuzzing is an automated technique that feeds large volumes of invalid, unexpected, or random inputs to a program with the aim of causing crashes, hangs, memory corruption, or security vulnerabilities. Fuzzed inputs may be produced in several ways: random data generation, mutation-based fuzzing (altering existing valid inputs), generation-based fuzzing (constructing inputs from a model or specification), or hybrid approaches. Coverage-guided fuzzers use feedback from the program’s execution to steer input generation toward unexplored code paths, increasing the likelihood of finding defects. After fuzzing, testers must reproduce the defects and triage them to determine root causes and fixes. Common tooling includes AFL, libFuzzer, and Honggfuzz, among others.

Outside computing, fuzzed can describe textures or appearances in textiles or audio, where a surface or sound has been intentionally made fuzzy or distorted. The meaning remains context-dependent, but across fields it generally signifies a state of softness, obscurity, or randomization.