Network security breached!

[Ananym]

In 2.0, what determines the ram cost reduction/penalty while quickhacking? At random I'll see a cost reduction (Network security breached!) or a penalty increasing my costs, but I've no idea where these come from or how I interact with whatever this is.

[Crimsomrider]

Some enemies have hacking protection which increases your RAM costs against them by a certain amount. Drones and robots usually have +1RAM cost, while Netrunners have +12 at times.

RAM reduction on the other hand doesn't have just one source. There are perks, quickhack combinations and cyberdecks which do it. One perk also reduces it based on how close you are to the enemy.

The Network Security Breached! is merely a leftover from 1.6 days when enemies could be breached so that daemons would apply to all enemies on the network. Now it doesn't do a thing, but the tooltip still remains on the screen as soon as you breach an access point on the location.

[Bogmore]

Don't forget terminals also have an access level too which may increase the steps needed to solve it.