The subject of this book could waltz into your home, your workplace or your bank, and sashay back out with any piece of personal information she fancied. She’s a word-class hacker with a talent for breaching walls – both virtual and brick – that protect private data.

Fortunately, the cybersecurity expert known as Alien is a ‘white hat’ hacker; one of the good guys. She’s paid to infiltrate the cyber defences of organisations and expose their weak spots before they’re exploited by hackers with more nefarious intentions – the black hats.

American writer Jeremy N Smith met Alien by chance and became fascinated with her dramatic career in the male-dominated sphere of cybersecurity. Breaking and Entering charts that career in forensic detail.

An unexpected point of fascination in the book is Alien’s experiences with the weird and drug-spiked student subcultures of MIT. On her first night on campus, Alien is introduced to a form of hacking that has nothing to do with a keyboard. This hacking involves midnight rendezvous, secret hand signals and risking death by climbing into and ‘hacking’ abandoned spaces at the top of MIT’s tallest buildings.

From her exploits at MIT to her first espionage-like assignments after graduating, Alien’s life busts the stereotype of hackers as shadowed hoodie-clad men bent over lines of glowing green code.

Breaking and Entering is very much a profile book, never straying from Alien’s perspective, but it does hint towards the broader story cybersecurity and how pivotal the role of hackers – the black and white hats – will be on society in the years to come.

Reviewed by Angus Dalton