Cyberpunk 2077 Hacking and Breach Protocol Guide

Beginner-friendly guide explaining how Hacking works in Cyberpunk 2077 and how to solve the Breach Protocol puzzles!

Hacking in Cyberpunk 2077 is one of the fun minigames that you can play. Not only can you hack your way out of a dangerous situation by interfering with your enemy’s Cyberware, gain more intel, and take down entire gangs and corpos without having to take out any of your guns or melee weapons but you can also make a lot of extra eurodollars using your hacking tools.

Introduction to Hacking in Cyberpunk 2077

Scan, scan and scan…never stop scanning. So press TAB and scan the environment. You can scan anything in the game. Doors, people and pay attention to things that are hackable.

Hacking provides you with a lot of intel and you can use the information to your advantage by finding hackable objects and come up with a tactical plan to take down enemies and hack cameras to scout your environment.

Installing your Cyberdeck

You will need to install your Cyberdeck to equip quickhacks that allow you to distract your enemies, hack their Cyberware and take control of Surveillance cameras which you can use to see how many enemies there are, their behavioral patterns (e.g. Guard 1 only walks from A to B while Guard 2 only patrols the front of a gas station) and come up with a tactical plan to come out on top in an otherwise precarious situation.

Certain objects can be scanned, for instance, a TV and you will get several Quickhack options on your screen of what you can do with it. Use your keyboard by pressing Q and E or the scroll wheel on your mouse to pick the option that according to you would be the best one in that situation. Press F to activate your pick.

There are several options to choose from too; Lethal and non-lethal options if you are hacking a target. The cost of each is called RAM and all of the options have different properties and durations.

How Breach Protocol Works in Cyberpunk 2077

Breach Protocol is a hacking minigame that invites you to hack an object using a sequence of letters and numbers to take control of a network.

Breach Protocol requires you to put a sequence of letters and numbers in a specific order. There is a variety of ways to use Breach Protocol and all uses give you different rewards, depending on what you are actually hacking.

But the method stays the same: You need to input the sequence of numbers and letters in a specific order into the buffer before the timer runs out. You will have to restart if you fail to beat the timer or if you enter the wrong sequence.

The opening screen of Breach Protocol with characters and numbers grouped in pairs.

See how the highlight changed after you click on the first active zone

Hack successful, time to exit the Interface.

On your interface rows of characters and numbers grouped in two’s will appear. The box on the right is where there characters you have selected will be on display so you can keep an eye on where you are in the sequence.

Below that box, you will see the list of numbers and letters for the sequence you will have to recreate in order to hack the object.

Now this is the hard part of Breach Objects:

At the start, the top row will be highlighted. This now is an active zone and that means you can only pick the options of that particular row. Every time you enter a pair of either the numbers or letters, the active zone will swap between the column you just selected OR the row. And they take turns – row > column > row > column and so on.

For example:

Your first input is somewhere in the top row and fourth column, then you will only be able to select the numbers or letters in the fourth column when you pick the next part of the sequence.

The sequences come in a variety of ways, some are long and those are the challenging ones, but they also come in short sequences, especially at the start of the game. So it becomes progressively harder.

Some characters are duplicates so keep an eye out on where they are placed on your screen. And plan, plan, plan. Take a good look at your screen before you start. The moment you select one of the characters, the timer starts running. So proactively looking at your screen and planning your route is essential for completing the minigame.

When you lock yourself out because you planned your route wrongly you will have to start all over and a new randomly generated code. So no sequence is ever the same even if you hack the same console.

Some of the devices have multiple sequences offering more rewards but at the same time also require to take more advanced actions. And if you are lucky enough then you will even gain more rewards from the same advanced sequence.

Hacking consoles with multiple rows of code combinations is more difficult, but if the codes on the right are the same between different rows for different bonuses, unlocking one of the codes via the matrix on the left side, will actually unlock all the places where that same code on the right side appears.

Becoming a Netrunner in Cyberpunk 2077

So what skills, attributes and perks do you need to become the elite Netrunner the people in Night City will come to know and fear?

If you decide that this is the way then you really need to focus on increasing the Intelligence Attribute as much as you can. The more points you put into the Intelligence Attribute, the more RAM you will have at your disposal. RAM capacity is essential to becoming an elite netrunner because more RAM allows you to use more hacking skills in the long run.

If you decide to become a Netrunner then make sure that you complete the Cyberpunk 2077 mission called “The Gift”. The quest will reward you with the Ping Quickhack ability and is of the utmost essence in order to become a netrunner.

Basically, whenever you use the Ping Quickhack skill on either an enemy or a camera, the quickhack will reveal all the enemies and devices in the area. A successful hack will give you a great advantage to creating the proper tactic on how to take down your enemies.

Once you have completed the mission “The Gift” make sure to check your inventory under Cyberware and then go to Mods to equip it. The Ping hack is one of the best tools for the Netrunner build and you should get it as soon as possible.

On top of that you will need to keep hacking and hacking and hacking. Just like all the other skills, the more you use them the more they are leveled.

You can obtain Quickhacks and their crafting schematics from Netrunner vendors and by breaching Access Points scattered throughout Night City.

Below is a gallery of the strongest Quickhacks in their highest tiers, so you can get a glimpse of what you can do at high levels using our build.

We have a complete Netrunner build guide for Cyberpunk 2077’s 2.0 Update and Plantom Liberty Expansion. Check it out to learn which Quickhacks are the most valuable in combat and how to build your character as the most optimal Netrunner possible.