Star Wars EU was nice, some kind of a universe where asymmetric encryption is much less certain than IRL, but at the same time if something is encrypted and you don’t have a key or a lot of power, having a “hacker” (a “slicer”, an “icebreaker”, whatever) won’t help.

That wasn’t intentional probably, just necessary for good writing. Writer’s skill and intelligence usually affect their understanding of computers, if they are writing science fiction.

Except, of course, for a few stupider than most places. “Wraith Squadron”'s bothan hacker being the worst.