tiger team
tiger team: n. [U.S. military jargon] 1. Originally, a team (of
sneakers) 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 defense 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' comm 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.
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