hacking skill is incredibly powerful, and a shortcut in many investigation scenarios

(From cyberpunk-ish perspective)
Let’s re-frame this. Instead of thinking about hacking, let’s think the goal here is to shoot someone. Of course, they can just walk up and shoot. But that is not enough to spend time on this. Especially when one of the PCs is a cybered-up shoot-first-ask-later kind of character. So what do we do, so there is a challenge to that? You can have bodyguards, secure buildings, time-frames, additional entanglements. Just as we don’t envision a mission where they could just walk up to the target on the street and pull the trigger, we need to add layers to hacking too.

And before I get to giving some examples. Take a look how investigation flows in noir films. Our hero is often and oddball that somehow manages to sleaze his way into possession of some info but then hits a snag, it all ties to someone with power. Some scheme where a few bad steps can buy you a bullet. So the hero had their shining moment but there’s more to it. And btw that tie is why we are telling the story in the first place.
Of course, there is little point to saturate every investigation hack with so much happening in the background. But again, it’s the same as with shooting. A trigger-finger-character is trying to get some info on the street and dice or pacing says you want to spend some additional time on that? The ensuing shoot out on the streets doesn’t have to be machinated by a corp secret forces, it can be just a case of Monday.
Same with hacking, if what they are looking for is just one piece of intel that is needed to continue, and PCs will obtain it this way or the other because that’s where story is going, just toss them an IC or two to keep things real and let’s call it a day

So the real hack, the beat-important hack is not just a hack on the go of a low level place. It should be like shooting a mid-level manager in the face. So layer it up with air-gapped systems, time-based response, public visibility, rouge AI, mysterious AI, script-kiddies wrecking the place, prototype ICE, etc. A complication that makes it a story and provides pressure

And just to rant a little bit, I think Shadowrun and Cyberpunk really dropped the ball on hacking. It shouldn’t have been a dungeon crawl. Currently we either have matrix-crawl or whole full-narrative systems. There is little in between and IMO in no way it resembles the source material like Neuromancer hacking

I don’t really run a lot of cyberpunk, but I’m all about subverting player expectations. The trick is usually to make them feel like they got something out of the skill, while also ensuring that they don’t circumvent the whole thing with a single check.

So say you look up the evil bad guy’s social media to find out where they live. Then you discover that they live in a hardened bunker only accessible from the private elevator of their corporate penthouse office. The knowledge of their whereabouts is useful, but it’s still going to require more strategizing to figure out how to penetrate it.

Or if they’re a major public figure, you might discover that their social media is being run by a botnet. You might not get your target’s exact location, but it gives you a chance to direct the players in an investigation at the botnet’s physical address.

Hacking the CCTV camera might determine that Joe did it. But maybe the assailant was disguised, or Joe got deepfaked, or your hacker discovers that someone has deleted / corrupted the footage. All of these scenarios have potential to turn the investigation in another direction.

If you have a hack-happy player then you probably want to do something to beef up the villains’ technological prowess. Ultimately you do want to reward the player for using their skillset, but you also want to challenge them too. Every hero needs a foil, after all.

It would probably be disingenuous to have every villain suddenly be a computer prodigy though. But it’s not unreasonable to have a few high-profile hacking antagonists or organizations. And if you’re the sort of villain who has the resources to wield a private army or a lavish ultra-rich lifestyle, it stands to reason that you’ve probably contracted out your IT needs

And how would you actually protect from panopticon.

That’s a big part of games like Shadowrun and Cyberpunk. Players can do a thing, but they’ll need to make sure they don’t leave evidence pointing to themselves, be that ballistics analysis, on cameras, or trace DNA.

Maybe a dose of realism? To hack anything serious from the outside it would probably take weeks or months of investigation, programming, testing, … So if the players don’t have the time, physical access, or previous knowledge and tools, that’s a big nay. It depends on what type of sci-fi though, if it’s the movie / tv type where hacking is a shortcut to anything in record time, welp.

@Ziggurat I don’t know of any system which does this. BUT my gut reaction is to simply make any kind of “hacking” skill less broad.

Requiring the player to either gain profeciency with the hacking skill towards different kinds of tech; as they advance.

OR

Breaking it down into less broad skills. I.E.
* Cryptography (decrypting encrypted data)
* Network Access/Device Penetration (getting into a device at a distance)
* Privilege Escalation (Your into the system, but now you need to trick it your an admin.)
* Scripting/Programming (Your miscellaneous reprogramming a device skill).

Really depends on the specifics of your setting doesn’t it. A lot of things aren’t going to be available outside of the local network which means you’d need to logistically get into the building via other skills. Most of the time your not going to be able to access what you want from a safe location.