QTP Interview Questions 18: How to recognize text in CAPTCHA image with HP QTP?

What is CAPTCHA? It is a type of test used to determine whether the user is human or computer. CAPTCHA is an acronym for "Completely Automated Public Turing test to tell Computers and Humans Apart". The goal of CAPTCHA is to prevent automated software like Borland Silktest 2008 or HP QuickTest Pro 9.2 from performing actions which degrade the quality of service of a given system, whether due to abuse or resource expenditure.

Of course as a part of testing effort your test team should try to break insecure implementation, not only with HP QTP 9.2. QA Engineer may check if CAPTCHA image allows multiple solution attempt on the same CAPTCHA or if system can by bypassed just by reusing the session ID on know image or check the size of pool of images.

What if you need to test other functionality of your web application with HP QTP 9.2 and CAPTCHA preventing from passing in? One of the solutions on QA environment would be to add text field near CAPCHA image that can be easily accessible by HP QuckTest Pro 9.2. One more approach would be to keep the same image on QA environment. In both cases do not forget to ship correct version to production.