Chapter 31
Chapter Thirty-One
Asher
No sysadmin in their right or deranged mind ever allowed themselves to think that they had an impenetrable firewall, but my team had come pretty damned close to accomplishing exactly that.
Ben, my second-in-command at FI, and I met in our freshman year in high school and bonded over code, games, making it better, run faster, busting industry limitations, DSL, the miracle of broadband, what our parents called ‘all things computer’.
Then we discovered Tor and thus began our adventures on the darknet.
Ben came up with the idea of dabbling in cybersecurity after we encountered Bjorn Arneson, the insane genius who would become our third cohort and eventual co-founder of Gatekeeper Security, named after his darknet handle.
Our primary mission—the skill that paid the bills and tuition—in those early years, break into corporate networks to find vulnerabilities and plug any holes.
Do legally what we caught BJ doing before he ended up busted and scooped up by the feds in a deal to avoid prison time.
Ben, BJ, and I met John Boyd in grad school when he approached us about designing a website to sell everything from adult toys to kink furnishings and later to helping clients make sexual fantasies a reality.
Graphics and website design were sort of a hobby for me, and when I told Ben and BJ what John wanted, they were onboard before I even blinked.
Sex toys, kink, and fantasies? Who could pass that up?
In less than a year, that collaboration had given birth to Fantasies, Inc.
BJ thought FI was a fantastic idea, and he put up some serious money to help with startup, but he decided to expand Gatekeeper, which was now one the three best and most respected cybersecurity companies in the world.
FI blew up beyond even what our wildest speculation could have come up with, and we recruited Tim Campbell and Will McDonald from Stanford.
Ben and I ‘met’ them in our online gaming group while fighting aliens, zombies, vampires, and other universal threats to help us recharge.
Ben and I were impressed with their mad gaming skills, out of the box tactics, and strategy, all of which complemented their professional expertise.
We invited them to intern with FI during their undergrad summer breaks sophomore and junior years and onboarded them after graduation.
They were now the co-leads of what I considered one of the sharpest IT teams in the business.
Whether it’s the deepest classified US Government agencies or John and Jane Q Public with a cellphone or other electronic device connected to the internet, odds are better than seven in ten that some bad actor or actors would be successful in their hacking attempts, be it by brute force or the end user inviting them in through malware.
Fantasies Inc.’s number was up today.
“Tell me what you do know.” We’d already been here for an hour, and no one had any concrete answers.
“We’re still checking all the firewalls, mainframe and subnets, to find where they got in. It’s looking—” Tim said. His red hair was sticking up so that he looked like he’d stuck his finger in an electrical outlet.
Will broke in. “Bossman, right now, everything is preliminary. I don’t want to say much more than that because, at best, it’d be speculation. The only sure thing at this moment: There was no breach of any of the firewalls.”
Ben looked directly at me. “I don’t want to go where that sign is pointing, at least not yet, until we have some concrete findings that give us no other choice.”
I waved his apology away. “I trust your work.”
“Thanks, but I’m not sure I do, not at the moment,” Ben muttered.
Will rubbed his eyes and raked his fingers through his hair.
“I haven’t been through every line of the logs yet, but I didn’t just scan them either.
The first review did not show any breach of the main firewall or the subnet firewalls.
All security updates are current. Scans have not turned up anything.
Being able to do this and not leave a trace is thirteen thirty-seven level… or...”
The conference room door opened, but there’d been no knock.
I was expecting John Boyd since I’d notified him, but it was Emma, balancing her open laptop on one arm and closing the door with her free hand.
She didn’t move from in front of the door.
Ben nodded a greeting. Will and Tim looked to me and then back to Emma.
“Emma Palmer, meet Tim Campbell, and the ginger next to him is Will McDonald. You’ve met Ben. Emma’s on loan from Tri-O-Tech as project manager for the streamlining and expansion. She’s something of a rock star when it comes to development.”
Emma’s cheeks turned a deep shade of pink as she looked down at her laptop.
“Nice meeting you, Emma.”
“Welcome, Emma.”
She nodded to Will and Tim and gave Ben a shy smile.
“Hi Emma. I meant what I said about that dinner and wine.”
“Thank you.” She put her laptop on the table next to me and pointed to the screen. “Sorry, for the interruption, but I thought you might want to have this information,” she said softly.
“What did you find?”
“Whoever it was didn’t breach the main firewall or the subnets, but you’ve probably already figured that out.”
Ben frowned. “It looks that way.”
I gestured for Emma to sit down.
“Do you have a way to project this so everyone can see?” she asked.
“Yes.” I woke the ninety-eight inch monitor and pulled it out just enough to read the label on the back. “Here’s the mirror address.” I read off the alphanumeric code.
“Thank you.” Before I was back at my seat, her laptop screen appeared on the monitor.
“All right.” Her voice shook a little bit, and I smiled with a half nod. “It took me a bit of digging, but whoever this is, they used valid credentials, which indicates…”
I watched the screen as she pulled up a hasty diagram of how they got in.
“Shit,” Ben muttered.
“Exactly,” Emma said. “No matter how I dissect this, I keep coming back to the same conclusion.” She glanced at me, and I nodded. “At this moment, it’s circumstantial at best, but unless we find something more definitive, our intruder is a current or former employee.”
And the chorus erupted, “What the f—”
“Quiet. Emma, explain, please.”
Emma looked around the table and used the laser pointer to call our attention to the information on the screen. Any shyness was long gone. She was in her element.
“There’s been no breach. The sniffer found what is at best a very thin pattern, but it also picked up similar breadcrumbs dropped in a suspicious pattern.
No alarms activated until the footprints in the forest, if you will, reached the firewall for an encrypted subnet on the R&D server.
This is only preliminary, but the characteristics look like some form of ghostware. ”
I could see the wheels turning as the team thought it through. Ben and Tim spoke at the same time.
“But we—” Ben didn’t take his eyes off the monitor.
“There’s no way—” Tim turned to Emma, his expression showing the slightest hint of accusation. If I didn’t know him as well as I did, I would’ve missed it.
I raised a hand. “Hold up. One at a time. Tim, you got the first syllable out. Go ahead.”
Tim glanced at me and then focused on Emma.
She didn’t wait for his comment. “I followed the trail. They started with HR, tried to get into IT, then tried R&D, then back to IT.” Emma glanced at me, and I had a sinking feeling about what was coming next.
“They got into the main server, but didn’t mess with anything—at least as far as I can tell right now.
Then”—now she locked on me— “they tried three times to access our subnet. No joy.” She used the laser pointer to trace a path on her diagram.
“Apparently, they tried one more time on R&D, made it through the server firewall, again, a legit pass. And here’s where it gets interesting.
They were in for about forty-five seconds, backed out, and then they did manage to access the company email directory, but as soon as they did, the intruder alarm trips, and our intruder hauls ass off the network, but not before the alarm trace routes to Seattle. Our intruder is local.”
“Shit,” Ben said again, under his breath.
“The good news is they didn’t get far.”
I breathed a sigh of relief.
“There was no direct breach of services.”
“Did they copy the directory?” Not as bad as it could have been, but still a breach. One I intended to make sure didn’t happen again.
“Doesn’t look like it. Here’s the thing, though.
Ghostware is so sneaky, even virus protection doesn’t catch it until it’s too late.
All of this activity until the email directory, was executed with legit credentials – at least as far as I can tell right now.
However, and it’s a big caveat, the reason I think it was some type of ghostware is because, while the credentials never triggered anything, I can’t identify who those credentials belong to. ”
I nodded. “Anything else?” She bit her lip, which told me there was more, but she was reluctant to say. “Emma, anything you say will stay in this room.”
She blew out a breath. “I know the servers held, but we need to check every system to make sure they didn’t slip a trojan or other virus in.”
Tim shook his head. “We have protections against that.”
“We had protections to prevent incursions, and look what happened there,” Will commented.
“I saw your protections, and they’re excellent, but you know how sneaky ghostware can be.” Emma said.
“Yep, that’s how it got its name.
“I agree.” My team was good, but she was right.
“Let’s get on this right away. It’s going to take time.
We’ve got to nail down how it got in, whether it was deliberate or accidental secondary to a malicious website, phishing, whatever.
I’ll send out the orders for refreshers on internet, email, and text safety.
What has me going round in circles is the question: What were they looking for? ”
Ben held my gaze. “If the SOB comes back, we will get them.” He stood and extended his hand to Emma. “Again, thanks for your help. You saved us a lot of hours. Now we have to confirm your preliminary information.”
Emma shook his hand and smiled. “Happy to help.”
As Tim was about to pass Emma, he extended a closed fist. “Much respect.” Emma inclined her head and gave him a fist bump.
Will stood and held Emma’s gaze then put his open hand over his heart and inclined his head. “Thirteen thirty-seven, ninja. Thirteen thirty-seven.” Emma blushed and, to my surprise, seemed to glow from the inside out.
“Thank you, Will.” Before she closed her laptop, she watched as he left and Ben followed him and closed the door.
Emma picked up her laptop and stared at the closed door. “Wow…” she breathed then turned to me. Her expression made the room seem warmer, the sun through the windows a bit brighter. She cleared her throat.
“We’re going to have to go over every log entry to try and find a starting place.
I know I said the findings were preliminary, but because of the intruder’s behavior, I’m ninety-nine percent certain this is ghostware.
One thing I’m absolutely certain of is it was brought in by a current or former employee.
I need you to take me through your out-processing procedures. ”
Emma held her laptop to her chest like protective armor. I cupped her shoulders and held her at arm’s length. “You showed some serious game and didn’t even flinch. Do you believe me now?”
She lowered her eyes. The blush slowly rose up her neck and into her cheeks. “I was doing what you’re paying me for—my job.”
I tilted my head and leaned forward just enough to catch her gaze.
“Emma, Ben and I have worked with some of the best in our profession, top-tier. Tim and Will don’t impress easily if at all.
” I raised her chin and kept my other hand on her shoulder.
“I wasn’t exaggerating. You managed to corral an incredible amount of information that would’ve taken days to collect and analyze, and you did it in”—I glanced at the clock over the door—“under three hours.”
“The sniffer did what it was designed to do.”
“Yep. You built it, tested it, perfected it.” I folded my arms across my chest. Emma didn’t look away.
Did she have any idea how respected she was in the profession, respected by colleagues who’d made their marks, earned their street cred?
Had she been so brainwashed by her family and the misogynistic pond scum that were the underbelly of the STEM professions?
I raised her chin and speared her with my gaze. No way was I going to let her minimize her accomplishments both within the project and her assistance with this intrusion. “Do you know what thirteen thirty-seven means?”
She shook her head. I was mildly surprised on the one hand, on the other, not so much. I chuckled. “I didn’t think so. How about wizard, guru, rock star?”
She tilted her head, one raised eyebrow and a half smile. “Of course I know what those designations mean. I haven’t been living under a rock or in a cave, Asher.”
I couldn’t suppress a chuckle, but I gave myself one brownie point for trying.
“One, three, three, seven, is leetspeak for leet, as in elite, an expert, one of the best. Recognition of and supreme respect for some very serious cred, as my brother would say. And you earned it. The accolade has absolutely nothing to do with your father. You cut your own path.”
As I watched her process the compliment, her shoulders straightened, and she stood a little taller. That’s it, Emma. You’re all that and so much more. Don’t ever forget it.
“C’mon, rock star. Standing here isn’t solving the problem.
” I bowed, extended my arm, and pointed to the door.
Emma giggled and inclined her head as she passed me, opened the door, and waved me through.
Just as I was about to move past her, she stood on tiptoe and kissed my cheek. “Let’s do this, bossman.”
Mind. Blown. Day made.