tiger team

n. [U.S. military jargon] 1. Originally, a team (of sneaker s) 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 cracker s, 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.

