How Realistic Are Hollywood Hacking Scenes?
In Vulture’s new series, Expert Witness, we ask scientists, historians, and other professionals to give Hollywood movies a good old-fashioned fact-check.
We all remember that moment in virtually every crime thriller where a hacker types furiously on their keyboard, then dramatically looks up at the protagonist and says something like “I’m in,” or “Bingo,” or “Yep, I’ve done it. I’ve hacked them.” People unfamiliar with cybercrime might dismiss these scenes as entertaining and maybe a little over-the-top, but what about computer-security experts? We put eight scenes from movies and TV shows to the test.