When she arrived at MIT in the 1990s
Alien wanted to study aerospace engineering
but she was soon drawn to the school's venerable tradition of high-risk physical trespassing: the original 'hacking.' Within a year
one of her hallmates was dead
two others were on trial
and two had been institutionalized. And Alien's adventures were only just beginning. After a stint at the storied
secretive Los Alamos National Laboratory
Alien was recruited by a top cybersecurity firm where she deployed her large cache of virtual weapons-and the trespassing and social engineering talents she first developed while 'hacking' at MIT. The company tested its clients' security by every means possible-not just coding
but donning disguises and sneaking past guards and secretaries into the C-suite. (She once got into the vault of a major bank by posing as its auditor.) Alien now runs her own boutique hacking outfit that caters to some of the world's biggest and most vulnerable institutions-banks
retailers
government agencies. Her work combines devilish charm
old-school deception
and next generation spycraft. In Breaking and Entering
cybersecurity finally gets the rich
character-driven
pacey treatment it deserves.