Tiger team
Encyclopedia
A tiger team is a group of experts assigned to investigate and/or solve technical or systemic problems. The term may have originated in aerospace design
but is also used in other settings, including information technology
and emergency management
. According to a 1964 definition, "In case the term 'tiger team' is unfamiliar to you, it has been described as 'a team of undomesticated and uninhibited technical specialists, selected for their experience, energy, and imagination, and assigned to track down relentlessly every possible source of failure in a spacecraft subsystem.'"
A term used by Rockwell Collins for a roaming installation team. It is believed that they came up with the term "Tiger Team"
.
The term originated within the military
to describe a team whose purpose is to penetrate security of "friendly" installations to test security measures. It now more generally refers to any team that attacks a problem aggressively.
) is a tiger team that was created by the National Security Agency
2. Tiger Team, BAE Systems, Portsmouth Naval Shipyard. International Fast Response Ship Repair team
3. Many tiger teams are informally constituted through managerial edicts. One of these was set up in NASA circa 1966 to solve the "Apollo Navigation Problem" and it makes an interesting story. The motivation was the discovery that current technology was unable to navigate Apollo at the level of precision mandated by the mission planners. Tests using radio tracking data from unmanned Lunar Orbiter spacecraft to evaluate circumlunar Apollo navigation were revealing errors of 2000 meters instead of the 200 that the mission required to safely land Apollo when descending from its lunar orbit. For example, Apollo astronauts were practicing landings in safe areas using the simulators at Houston. A tenfold increase in this error-bound implied a hundredfold increase in the target area, which then included unacceptably dangerous terrain. The mission was seriously at risk. This was a navigation problem and so five tiger teams were set up to find and correct the problem, one at each NASA center, from CalTech JPL in the west to Goddard SFC (GSFC) in the east. The Russians via Luna 10
were also well aware of this problem. There was an intentionally competitive aspect to this strategy, which was "won" by JPL in the spring of 1968 when it was shown that the problem was caused by the unexpectedly large local gravity anomalies on the moon arising from large ringed maria, mountain ranges and craters on the moon. This also led to the construction of the first detailed gravimetric map of a body other than the earth and the discovery of the lunar mass concentrations (Mascons).
Aerospace
Aerospace comprises the atmosphere of Earth and surrounding space. Typically the term is used to refer to the industry that researches, designs, manufactures, operates, and maintains vehicles moving through air and space...
but is also used in other settings, including information technology
Information technology
Information technology is the acquisition, processing, storage and dissemination of vocal, pictorial, textual and numerical information by a microelectronics-based combination of computing and telecommunications...
and emergency management
Emergency management
Emergency management is the generic name of an interdisciplinary field dealing with the strategic organizational management processes used to protect critical assets of an organization from hazard risks that can cause events like disasters or catastrophes and to ensure the continuance of the...
. According to a 1964 definition, "In case the term 'tiger team' is unfamiliar to you, it has been described as 'a team of undomesticated and uninhibited technical specialists, selected for their experience, energy, and imagination, and assigned to track down relentlessly every possible source of failure in a spacecraft subsystem.'"
A term used by Rockwell Collins for a roaming installation team. It is believed that they came up with the term "Tiger Team"
Security tiger teams
In security work, a tiger team is a specialized group that tests an organization's ability to protect its assets by attempting to circumvent, defeat, or otherwise thwart that organization's internal and external securitySecurity
Security is the degree of protection against danger, damage, loss, and crime. Security as a form of protection are structures and processes that provide or improve security as a condition. The Institute for Security and Open Methodologies in the OSSTMM 3 defines security as "a form of protection...
.
The term originated within the military
Military
A military is an organization authorized by its greater society to use lethal force, usually including use of weapons, in defending its country by combating actual or perceived threats. The military may have additional functions of use to its greater society, such as advancing a political agenda e.g...
to describe a team whose purpose is to penetrate security of "friendly" installations to test security measures. It now more generally refers to any team that attacks a problem aggressively.
Examples of tiger teams
1. The NSA Cyber Defense Tiger Team (Red CellRed Cell
Red Teams or Red Cells are U.S. government parlance for teams or units designed to test the effectiveness of U.S. tactics or personnel. "Red Cell" was purported to be a U.S. Navy SEAL team which had been organized to attempt to infiltrate and otherwise test the security of U.S...
) is a tiger team that was created by the National Security Agency
National Security Agency
The National Security Agency/Central Security Service is a cryptologic intelligence agency of the United States Department of Defense responsible for the collection and analysis of foreign communications and foreign signals intelligence, as well as protecting U.S...
2. Tiger Team, BAE Systems, Portsmouth Naval Shipyard. International Fast Response Ship Repair team
3. Many tiger teams are informally constituted through managerial edicts. One of these was set up in NASA circa 1966 to solve the "Apollo Navigation Problem" and it makes an interesting story. The motivation was the discovery that current technology was unable to navigate Apollo at the level of precision mandated by the mission planners. Tests using radio tracking data from unmanned Lunar Orbiter spacecraft to evaluate circumlunar Apollo navigation were revealing errors of 2000 meters instead of the 200 that the mission required to safely land Apollo when descending from its lunar orbit. For example, Apollo astronauts were practicing landings in safe areas using the simulators at Houston. A tenfold increase in this error-bound implied a hundredfold increase in the target area, which then included unacceptably dangerous terrain. The mission was seriously at risk. This was a navigation problem and so five tiger teams were set up to find and correct the problem, one at each NASA center, from CalTech JPL in the west to Goddard SFC (GSFC) in the east. The Russians via Luna 10
Luna 10
Luna 10 was a Luna program, robotic spacecraft mission, also called Lunik 10.The Luna 10 spacecraft was launched towards the Moon from an Earth orbiting platform on March 31, 1966. It was the first artificial satellite of the Moon...
were also well aware of this problem. There was an intentionally competitive aspect to this strategy, which was "won" by JPL in the spring of 1968 when it was shown that the problem was caused by the unexpectedly large local gravity anomalies on the moon arising from large ringed maria, mountain ranges and craters on the moon. This also led to the construction of the first detailed gravimetric map of a body other than the earth and the discovery of the lunar mass concentrations (Mascons).
See also
- Penetration testPenetration testA penetration test, occasionally pentest, is a method of evaluating the security of a computer system or network by simulating an attack from malicious outsiders and malicious insiders...
- Red CellRed CellRed Teams or Red Cells are U.S. government parlance for teams or units designed to test the effectiveness of U.S. tactics or personnel. "Red Cell" was purported to be a U.S. Navy SEAL team which had been organized to attempt to infiltrate and otherwise test the security of U.S...
US Navy SEAL Tiger Team - SneakersSneakers (film)Sneakers is a 1992 caper film directed by Phil Alden Robinson, written by Robinson, Walter F. Parkes, and Lawrence Lasker and starring Robert Redford, Dan Aykroyd, Ben Kingsley, Mary McDonnell, River Phoenix, Sidney Poitier and David Strathairn...
(1992) - Tiger TeamTiger Team (TV series)Tiger Team is the name of an American television show that airs on TruTV .The show follows a civilian tiger team composed of Chris Nickerson, Luke McOmie, and Ryan Jones, which is hired to infiltrate organizations with the objective of testing their weaknesses to electronic, psychological,...
television show on Court TV (TruTV)