SUSTAIN

So if you watch Overwatch League you know that there are three major classes of characters who show up at the pro-level:

• Healers (Providing SUSTAIN)
• Damage Dealers (Penetrating into space)
• Tanks (Holding space)

Heroes never die.

In our game-theory model we use tanks as synonyms for Implants. Damage dealers are clearly your initial operator team or automated toolset which penetrate into adversary networks. Healers are your sustain. But what is sustain, when it comes to CNE?

I have a very particular definition of sustain which is best illustrated by a story I heard recently from Law Enforcement about a hacker who got caught after ten years of having his implants on a regional bank. Every day, for ten years, he had logged in and maintained his presence on that network. Think of the dedication that requires.

But he's not alone. Right now, all over the world, hackers are waking up and visiting thousands of networks, making sure logs are being deleted, gathering new passwords that have changed, moving from host to host to avoid detection, looking to make sure no one is investigating their boxes. There's a giant list of things you have to do - reading the admin's mail to see when upgrade cycles are scheduled and then planning how to stay installed through that kind of activity is not easy!

But just as in Overwatch, this game is won or lost not by how great your DPS is, and sometimes not by the sophistication of your implants, but purely on sustain.