Stephen Coonts - Combat

The station to the left of the EWK was occupied by a recently recruited Cyberknight. Since a highly technical hack attack such as the one Eric was about to undertake was both difficult and involved operations against a sovereign power, only the most senior Cyberknights were permitted to make them. To qualify for what was, among the Cyberknights, these most prestigious assignments, a novice had to observe six actual hacks in the Pit and successfully complete twelve consecutive simulations. On this day, the honor of checking off his first observed Pit hack fell to Hamud Mdilla, the bright young newbie Eric had shown around.

Most people who wander onto the World Wide Web from their home computers give little thought about how their input makes it from the keyboard sitting on their laps to the sites they are seeking. Nor do they much care that so much data about who they are, and where they are, is bounced about the web in a rather haphazard manner, from one web server to another, in search of the most direct route to the site desired. Few appreciate how much personal data is left behind, like footprints, during this process.

Things were not that easy for the 401st. They could not simply dial up a local server, plug into the Web, and charge out into cyberspace in search of hackers messing with the Army’s computers. This was especially true when going head-to-head with a foreign power who possessed the same ability to tap into servers around the world in search of a foe. Since this was how the Cyberknights themselves found most of their adversaries, it was safe to assume that their counterparts working for other masters would do likewise.

To counter this threat, every major cyberattack, such as the one which Eric was about to embark upon, followed a pathway along the Web plotted out by a network-routing specialist. To the Cyberknights, they were the pathfinders. Working at the computer located on the far left of the rear table, the pathfinder opened the route the hack attack took through the World Wide Web. This normally involved going through a number of servers located around the world. Unlike the home web surfer, there was nothing random about the pathway that data would travel. Yet it had to appear that way. To accomplish this little trick the pathfinder mimicked the route that a hacker the 401st had dealt with in the past had followed. This not only served to confuse the cyberwarfare specialist who might come back at them later, but it also covered the unit’s own tracks as the Cyberknights crawled along the Web en route to their target. Any webmaster monitoring a Web server along the way who caught the Cyberknights hack would think that it was the same hacker who had visited them before.

This intricate course through the Web also served to protect the security of the 401st and the Keep. By knowing, in advance, where the outgoing data packets were going, the EWK would be able to go back, when the hack attack was over, and erase any record of the traffic at selected servers. This would make it impossible for anyone tracing the hack to discover the real point of origin. Since the Keep was, at that moment, a one-of-a-kind facility, protecting it was always a major concern. While the attack Eric and the team assembled in the Pit was important, it was not worth compromising the entire unit, a unit that could very well be needed to parry the opening attack of the next war.

The last member of the assault team, the officer in charge, had a seat at the rear table, but no computer. This paradox was the result of a decision made by Colonel Shrewsbery’s predecessor when the operational procedures for the 401st were being drafted. Since the officer in charge had the responsibility for the attack, the first commander of the 401st felt it was important that he or she be unencumbered by a computer. “Who’ll be keeping an eye on the overall ebb and flow of the attack, the big picture of what’s going on,” the unit’s first commander pointed out, “if the OIC is fiddling about with a computer mouse.” Though none of the Cyberknights since then understood how the OIC of a hack could run things without a computer, the issue was never debated or discussed.

A well-orchestrated hack attack did not simply happen. How various Cyberknights thought of their collective efforts was reflected by the terminology they used. Those who followed professional sports spoke of scoring when they accomplished an assigned task, or fumbling the ball when a hack went astray. Other Cyberknights with an ear for the classics liked to think of themselves as members of a well-tuned orchestra. And, of course, there were those who enjoyed spicing up their mundane lives by taking on superhero personas that would make Walter Mitty blush.

None of these alternate realities, however, could disguise the fact that this was, from beginning to end, a military operation. Once the officer in charge of the hack had assembled his team, all pretenses were dropped. With few exceptions these officers were like Shrewsbery, professional soldiers with a muddy-boots background who had been pulled into the 401st because they had a demonstrated ability to lead troops.

Their task was not at all an easy one. Most hackers, by their nature, were loners. They did not readily surrender their cherished individualism since so much of their self-worth was based upon what they, and they alone, could do. To overcome this common personality quirk, every OIC staged a rehearsal once all the preliminaries had been completed and the various players felt they were ready. While standing before his assembled strike team, the OIC walked through the hack attack step by step, from beginning to end.

Since most of the officers in the 401st who served as OICs for attacks could not hope to match the technical expertise of the people they would be in charge of, these professional soldiers relied upon the published execution matrix. This document, set up like a spreadsheet, listed each and every step that would be made during the attack down the left-hand edge of the page. Across the top of the matrix was the title of each member of the team, listed at the head of a column. By following that column down the page, everyone in the Pit could see what action he or she was expected to take as the attack unfolded.

With this execution matrix in hand, the OIC would point to the member on the team whose responsibility it was to initiate the next action. As he and every other person in the Pit listened, the soldier or technician the OIC was pointing to explained in detail what he would do at that point. When finished the OIC would turn to another team member, sometimes chosen at random, sometimes selected because they were required to support the event in progress, to spell out what was expected of them. Every now and then the OIC threw in a “what if?” scenario before moving on to the next item in the sequence. Though he already had an idea who needed to respond to his hypothetical question, the OIC would not point to that person, waiting, instead, for them to respond to the unexpected situation. Only when he was satisfied that everyone knew his or her role in the pending operation would the OIC report to Colonel Shrewsbery that they were ready to execute.

The timing of these attacks varied. The classic window chosen to hack into a system was during off hours, when the traffic on the targeted system was light and the chances of someone noticing something unusual was minimal. There were times, however, when hackers wanted to get lost in the traffic, or when the traffic on a busy system was actually necessary, especially when the hacker was trying to collect authentic screen names and passwords which he could use later. Because the hack attack Eric was about to embark upon required him to assume the persona of macnife, the attack had to be staged at a time when the real macnife would not be at his computer.