Meet the team breaking into top-secret HQ’s

Once inside, Dan knows how to open doors, filing cabinets, and desk drawers. He is armed with master keys known as jigglers, with multiple circuits that can open a lock.

It looks for recorded passwords or uses a plug-in smart USB adapter to imitate a computer keyboard, hacking into the network.

The final step in the so-called murder chain lies in the hands of Stanley.

A cybersecurity expert, Stanley knows how to break into the most secure computer systems while working on his colleagues’ intelligence report.

“In the movies, it takes a hacker a few seconds to break into a system, but the reality is different.”

He prefers his own “escalation approach,” working through the system through administrator access and looking for “fusion,” collecting information shared in one place, such as a workplace intranet.

It can navigate files and data using administrator access. One way to complete the murder chain is for Stanley to send an email posing as a company executive through an internal, and therefore trusted, network.

Even though they are acting with the approval of the target customer, they enter the site as complete strangers. How does it feel?

“Once you get access to the server room, it’s quite nerve-wracking,” says Dan, “but the more times you do it, the easier it becomes.”

There is someone at the target site who knows what is happening. “We keep in touch with them so they can give the order, ‘Don’t shoot these people,’” Charlie adds.