so the question has arose many times with me, just -how- hard is it to hack into a AAA corp. data system and get away with said data? how much is the data worth? what is the data. what are the chances of living after you do this?

Depends on the corp, depends on the data system, depends on the sensitivity of the data. Getting your hands on, for instance, Horizon internal social media feeds is going to be much, much easier than getting an AZT security system footage of a blood magic sacrifice ritual.


Depends on the data and the buyer. The data auction sites would pay a fortune for that AZT blood ritual footage (and then they'd probably wind up selling it right back to AZT, of course,) while you'd only get paid for Horizon social media blogoblag if someone hired you to do legwork for them.



"What is the data" depends on the corp and how deep you went, and whether or not you were careful to watch for misinformation or old data.


Depends on the corp. Horizon, and the chances veer much closer to 100% than if you annoy Lone Star outside a donut shop. Renraku likes to make a point of hunting down runners who embarrass them, even if it is highly unprofitable to do so. Most of the others fall somewhere in the middle, depending on what their estimates of your motivations are. For example, if they think you did it as part of a run, they're much less likely to come after you, and even if you just freelanced it for some extra cash, they're still less likely to come after you than if your goal was to broadband the data to damage them.

Also depends on your security measures. If they have no idea the datasteal was even done until their paydata appears in the shadows data auctions, well, your odds went way up. If they successfully traced you through your redirect programs and proxies and know where you were hacking from, it's time to leave town immediately and take up prayer.

Btw, I didn't read the new book stuff, but did Fastjack's digital smackdown of Horizon via "Conspiracy Theories" and the damage he took there, lead to the stuff that contributed to 'where he is now'?

In 5th edition, you pretty much can't, unless you make something up. There are no rules for a "Deep Matrix" run, until more books are released. There are Vaults, and under the current rules they out right can't be hacked, except by social engingeering. The example given is talking an employee into removing the data from the Vault, then hacking it after it's removed.

One house/temporary rule Aaron has suggested is having Hosts, within Hosts, an idea which I like and will probawly use. I'm probaly going to create something like timed and teleporting SANS for Hosts witlhin a Host as well, to make it even harder to just steal from the most Red and Ultraviolet Hosts.

Of course it also depends on the data. You won't need to go into a Vault to steal something simple, like a list of deliveries. But even then, if it's a major AAA Host, there will be constant patrols by high class Spiders, just looking for hacks and personaes running silent. Also, according to Jason Hardy, the G-Men activity is more intense on the Megacorp Grids.

Another thing, the Megas have wised up and will use lots of things to stop hackers like wired LANs, wireless blocking paint, and Noise architecture, to force hackers to have to physically enter a site to steal the really hot data. So you are probaly looking at a full on shadowrun if the info has a decently high value.

the obvious solution seems to be archive keys; encrypted files with very very nasty data bombs attached (like rating 10 or rating 12). hackable? theoretically. practically... uh, have fun versus 12d6 matrix damage. said keys are carried on high-rating commlinks that are biometrically keyed to the authorized personnel and typically do not leave the safety of being slaved to a corporate host. you'd have to pop the carrier without getting caught, force his commlink to upload the key, and still need to sleaze around in the middle of a rating 10 ic deathtrap host-within-a-host. sounds like good times.

i'm afraid the deep run rules are going to be back to retro "matrix dungeon" bullshit. more flavorful, but less fun for the rest of the group unless they really need to drink and get pizza. there's such a thing as too retro.

A quick note on hacking a AAA:

A triple A corp, at least the parent company with the prime name, is really little more than a holding company with a board and perhaps some finances. And that Prime Company is going to be meticulously liability free. Even AZT blood sacrifice doesn't happen under AZT, the name. It happens under an innocuous seven times removed subsidiary to off brand soy tacos.

In contrast, the specs for the predator VI aren't necessarily in ARES MEGA CORPORATE HOST OF DOOM..they're porably sitting in Ares Firearms, R&D department, in a specific project vault.

Hell, even the Horizon blogopshere is going to be under several client services running at their own subsidiaries.

All of which is a long way to say that you can't just smash and grab hack your way into a triple A, because their legit info is well secured in a reasonably specific target, and their illegit info is exceedingly well obfuscated. An unaimed random hack will probably just get your burned out, crashed out, traced, and or just plain kicked.

Depends on the department. The secretary pool isn't going to be that strict, while the coffee fund is heavily defended (and is probably where the Corp hides its Shadowrunner payments.).

Or hosts with access to two or more grids by it's WAN....

The 'flat' feel of the grid system is great for roleplaying matrixs runs. just make a host an actual host to a 'locked out' grid by way of a WAN for example.

You can screw with Staffing, You can screw with Research and Development, and you can even screw with Infrastructure allocations, but Never, NEVER screw with the Coffee Fund.

Frag with the Coffee Fund and every wageslave in the company will pool their free money to hire Prime Runners to come and frag you.

On the other hand, make it seem like one of the company types is stealing from the coffee fund and they'll do that hit mission and take out your target for you

Or, better yet, they'll hire Runners to do it, which to me sounds like "Getting paid thrice."
1: Mr. Johnson's payment.
2: Stealing the Coffee Fund.
3: The wageslave's payment to kill Mr. Johnson's target.

Agreed, under the current SR5 rules each Mega Corp has it's own Grid with many many Host systems for their various subsidiaries and facilities as well as Host system for purely virtual things. Their less obvious subsidiaries, those several times removed for fear of bad PR or simply enhanced security, are likely on a Local Grid instead of the parent corp grid. Many of the more secure hosts will be running silent instead of public. Figuring out which one to hit for the pay-data you want would be difficult, assuming its on a Matrix connected system at all instead of a hard wired off-grid data storage or R&D environment for extra security.

Now let's say you're actually just some crazy decker looking to break into a secure system to see what's there and steal whatever you can find worth stealing. Top of Page 247 has a list of host ratings which run from 1-12 depending on the nature of the host. Mega Corporation Head Quarters is 11-12. Let's assume rating 12. According to that same page: "Hosts also have all four Matrix attributes: Attack, Sleaze, Data Processing, and Firewall. The ratings of these attributes are usually (Host Rating), (Host Rating + 1), (Host Rating + 2), and (Host Rating + 3), in any order. " That means you're looking at possibly Firewall 15 with the IC inside having Attack 14. Killer IC would have a dice pool of 24 [14] for attacking you... and base damage 14 if it hits!