tiger team
(US military jargon) 1. Originally, a team whose purpose is to penetrate
security, and thus test security measures. These people are paid professionals
who do hacker-type tricks, e.g. leave cardboard signs saying "bomb" in critical
defence installations, hand-lettered notes saying "Your codebooks have been
stolen" (they usually haven't been) inside safes, etc. After a successful
penetration, some high-ranking security type shows up the next morning for a
"security review" and finds the sign, note, etc. and all hell breaks loose.
Serious successes of tiger teams sometimes lead to early retirement for base
commanders and security officers (see the patch entry for an example).
2. Recently, and more generally, any official inspection team or special
firefighting group called in to look at a problem.
A subset of tiger teams are professional crackers, testing the security of
military computer installations by attempting remote attacks via networks or
supposedly "secure" communication channels. Some of their escapades, if
declassified, would probably rank among the greatest hacks of all times. The
term has been adopted in commercial computer-security circles in this more
specific sense.
[Jargon File]
Nearby terms:
tickle a bug « tick-list features « TIFF « tiger
team
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