Tim Washburn - Cyber Attack

Seconds later she nearly jumps out of her skin when a staccato of gunfire erupts outside. She drops to the floor and slithers behind the chair for cover.

Manhattan

“Where do you want to start, Paige?” Morales asks, as they exit off the Williamsburg Bridge.

“I’d like to begin at Nasdaq headquarters.”

“Why? Because they’ve been hacked before?” Morales asks.

“Yes. I’m thinking there might be a vulnerability or two still lurking around in their network.”

“The company allegedly shored up their network,” Hank says as Morales makes a left on Broadway.

“So what?” Paige says, now cooled off from the altercation with Hank. “All software has flaws. Even if they reconfigured their systems or built in new and better firewalls, there will still be vulnerabilities. Humans write code and humans make mistakes. You just hope, as a company, you find them first before the bad guys do.”

“If you find the malware, Paige, how long to make an ID on the hackers?” Morales asks.

“I don’t know, Tomás. How long did it take the agency to identify the bad actors from the first hack on the stock market?”

Morales scowls then says, “Four years. And even then the agency said they were only seventy percent certain the Russians were involved. I don’t think we ever identified any of the individuals involved.”

“Exactly,” Paige says. “And, no, we never ID’d any of the hackers. We’re in for a long slog, Tomás.”

“Okay, we’re a long way from identifying the hackers,” Tomás says, “but how long to get a handle on this malware, Paige?”

“Well, we have to find it first,” Paige says. “After that it’s a matter of dissecting whatever it is and writing a piece of software to quarantine and kill it. That could take a while once we find it.”

Tomás grimaces. “No way to speed things up?”

Paige shrugs. “I’m open to ideas.”

Hank turns in his seat to look back at Paige. “Do you think they’re usin’ the same piece of malware for all of their attacks?”

“There’s no way to know that yet,” Paige says. “But I would find it highly unlikely the same virus is being used.”

Hank shakes his head. “They might be the best hackers on the planet, but I doubt they’ve developed a grab bag full of exploits. I think it’s more likely they’re usin’ multiple variants of the one piece of malware—malware they’ve probably spent years refinin’.”

“I’m not arguing with you, Hank,” Paige says, “but we shouldn’t base future decisions on what we might or might not find here. We need comparison samples from the aircraft manufacturer or one of the other places that was hit. We’d be shooting ourselves in the foot if we create a piece of software to scan for this particular malware and find out they’ve been using multiple types of malware.”

“Jesus,” Morales says, “I feel like we’re just waiting for the next bad thing to happen. We need to be more proactive. Why can’t we create software to scan for what we may find here and ship it out? If we find they’re using other malware, couldn’t we just create more software?”

“In theory, yes,” Paige says, “but in reality, no. The virus scan itself could cause the malware to execute its payload. Then we’d have an avalanche of bad things happening. We have no idea what else is in the works, but we need to be very careful how we proceed.”

“It’s hard to be careful when the body count continues to rise,” Morales says dejectedly. He pulls into a parking garage a block south of Wall Street, takes his ticket, and begins the search for a vacant spot. Round and round they go, finally finding a spot down on the fourth level. They park, exit the SUV, and make their way to One Liberty Plaza.

After a brief, heated argument between Morales and the company’s chairman over privacy issues, the administrator username and password were passed on to Paige and Hank and they were taken to a small office near the local server room. Morales opted to stay behind to return phone calls, so Hank and Paige grab chairs and start working. Using her laptop, Paige logs in to the company’s Wi-Fi and navigates to an FBI-created virtual private network (VPN) and enters her credentials. She downloads the new toolkit that Natalie had sent and loads it onto a clean encrypted flash drive. She hates flash drives but it’s the only way to insert the software into the company’s system without hooking up her computer, something she won’t do. The last thing she needs is for the malware to infect her computer.

“What do you want me to do?” Hank asks.

“Use one of the company’s computers and log in to the system. See if the username and password they gave us will allow us access to the source code.”

Hank steps over to a workstation and sits. The office door opens and a balding man who looks to be in his early forties enters. “I’m Kent Fitzpatrick, head of IT. I’ve been instructed to assist in any way I can.”

“Pull up a chair, Kent,” Hank says. “Have you had a chance to look at any of the source code?”

“No. I’ve spent most of the day putting out fires.”

Hank recalls the admin username and password from a compartment in his brain and enters the information and logs in. “I assume access to your source code is tightly controlled.”

“You are correct,” Fitzpatrick says. “Most of it is proprietary software and unique to the industry.”

Hank looks up at Kent. “If access is strictly enforced, how did you end up with malware in your system?”

“I’m not convinced it exists.”

As the conversation between Hank and the new guy continues, Paige spends several moments examining the new software from Natalie. They are tools she’s never seen or used before, but it doesn’t take long for Paige to get up to speed on how they function. She ejects the flash drive and pulls it from her laptop, carrying it over to the computer Hank’s working on.

Fitzpatrick spots the flash drive in her hand. “We don’t allow external storage devices on our network.”

Paige pins Fitzpatrick to his chair with a stern look. “Today, you do.” She pulls up another chair and nudges Hank away from the computer.

Fitzpatrick rubs his forehead with his palm. “I object to your use of a flash drive on our system.”

“Duly noted,” Paige replies. She plugs the drive into the computer’s USB port and launches the first application.

“What program are you running?” Fitzpatrick asks.

“One you’ve never heard of. Let’s just leave it at that, shall we?”

“Whatever,” Fitzpatrick mumbles, kneading his neck with his right hand.

“Do I have access to every server on your network from here?” Paige asks.

“Not all of them. We keep redundant systems off-line in case of emergency.”

“How do you access them when you need to?”

“They have to be manually plugged in to the network at our server farm in Carteret, New Jersey,” Fitzpatrick says.

“How often are they connected to the main network?”

“Not very. The last time was October of last year when we were doing some system maintenance.”

“They might not be infected, but depending on what we find here we might need them online. Are you prepared to make that call?”

“Not really. Like I said, I’m not convinced our network has been infiltrated.”

“Were you workin’ here in October of 2010?” Hank asks.

Fitzpatrick rubs a hand across his balding head. “I was working in the IT department, yes.”

“But not the lead guy?” Hank asks.

“No.”

“What happened to him or her?”

Kent sighs again. “He was fired.”