tiger team

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.