Dominic Conlon - Silent Warpath

‘What escapade would that be?’ enquired Natasha lightly.

‘AMA,’ said DD. ‘I pinched a couple of tapes from their computer room.’ He swivelled round in the seat to face Natasha. ‘Actually that’s how I think your company’s system was hacked.’

‘Sean told me a little bit about that. Before then I didn’t think it would be possible. We had top level people looking after our network security.’

‘I’m sure you did’ replied DD. ‘But they overlooked one area.’

Natasha shook her head sadly. ‘And I thought we were secure. Sean told me you thought they hacked our backup tapes.’

DD turned round to look at Natasha. ‘Well I think the procedure went something like this: after the tapes are backed up each night they’re sent to the post room where they're recorded in a log. Then they're labelled and passed onto the courier.’

‘It was one of the secretary’s jobs to label them before they were sent off-site.’

‘I don’t suppose you know where they went then?’

Natasha shook her head. ‘I expect they were collected and sent to a secure storage facility — out of town probably.’

‘That’s what is supposed to happen’, agreed DD. ‘But some of the tapes that were labelled were blank ones. Someone — I don’t know who — systematically swapped the labels on the tapes, so blank tapes were substituted for the real ones. The records would show that the number of tapes they received at the other end was the same as the number of tapes sent. From there we think someone picked up the marked tapes and smuggled them out.’

‘But wouldn’t someone notice if they were storing blank tapes instead of the real ones?’

‘That’s where they were clever. When a real tape was smuggled out, it would be copied and then smuggled back in. The tapes would then be switched back, so no-one was the wiser.’

‘But how do you know this?’

‘I think they made a mistake. Your company recalled tapes to retrieve files every now and again. I think Ben recalled several tapes before the switch-back had been made. When he found the first blank one he recalled a number of other tapes to check. Perhaps he found some of the other blank ones. But whatever he found made him think that someone was playing the system.’

Natasha sat quietly, thinking back over those dark days. ‘So where does this tape come in?’ she asked, pointing towards the tape device on DD’s desk.

‘I’m about to do the same here — try and recreate Advanced Marine Agency’s system from this baby.’

‘But it seems such an impossible task. I know — just getting stuff back from an old tape can be a nightmare. Getting it back when you don’t know what passwords are involved must be nearly impossible.’

‘But that’s the trick, Natasha. Once you’ve got the administrator password, you can access their systems remotely. You could set up a hidden account which wouldn’t show up on the logs. That way, the next time you access the system there’s no trace of your visit. You could log on remotely whenever the staff have gone home and check progress. You could even download documentation and programming code. You could fiddle with the code, or write a completely separate module which only gets loaded when the software is used for the first time. You don’t even have to log in to get the info you want. You could drop a secret program onto the system that collects info during the day, then sends the data out at night. No-one need ever know. Really, once you have the administrator password, you can go anywhere and do anything.’

Natasha looked crestfallen. ‘If what you say is true, they know everything we have been working on.’

DD shook his head. ‘I don’t think that was what they wanted. The way it looks to me is they were out to wreck your project.’

‘Then why didn’t they just wipe our servers when they had access to them?’ asked Natasha.

‘Because you would just have reinstalled your work from backup. And the whole firm would know then that there were blank tapes. No, they wanted to make it look like it was a problem with your project — not sabotage by someone else. They wanted everyone to think it happened because of a mistake that the project team made. No-one would question that — so many government projects fail simply because the software isn’t perfect. One simple mistake leads to another and then another. And before you know it the accumulated issues cause a major problem that jeopardises the project. That way, no-one would even think to look into how strong the security was, or if a breech had occurred. In its own way this plan was brilliant.’

‘But now we know’ said Natasha.

‘Now we know how it happened, when the breach happened and where it happened’ said DD. 'But we don’t know who and what.’

‘What don’t we know?’

‘What they’ve done’ said DD simply. ‘I know they’ve uploaded a virus to the project, but I’ve no idea what it’s done. And I don’t know yet who was ultimately responsible for masterminding the sabotage.’

For the next half an hour, DD outlined the information he had. He explained how they had come to realise that the Advanced Marine Agency were behind the plan, his own period of detention and his rescue. He went on to talk about how he and Lomax had struck back and how they had come by the tapes. Natasha asked a few questions now and again. At one point when she realised that Sean had been protecting her nearly 24 hours every day, she put up a hand to cover her eyes. DD thought she might be crying, but when she took her hand away a few moments later, he saw only a new glint of determination.

Natasha got up and walked out of the room. She returned five minutes later with her own laptop. ‘Perhaps you can help me’ she said as she set it down on the table. DD looked on as she showed him the various files that were downloaded to the sub. After a minute she pointed out the file she believed contained the virus.

DD pulled out a spare memory stick. ‘May I?’ he enquired.

Natasha hesitated. It went against everything she had been trained to do. A brief thought flashed through her mind. If anyone found out, she could be charged with treason. She wondered briefly what the penalties for treason were. Then she took the stick from DD and plugged it into her laptop. In a few seconds she had copied the file onto the device and she returned it to DD.

She watched as DD used several programs to examine the file. First he scanned it using an anti-virus program that she was familiar with. ‘Well, no known virus’ muttered DD under his breath.

‘I’ve tried this before’ said Natasha.

‘No harm in trying again Nat — I always cover the bases first.’

Next he loaded a debugger. Natasha knew that the program helped developers discover problems in programs they had written. But she had not used one for a long time and was captivated by the speed at which DD operated. The screen filled with rows of numbers and letters, none of which would have made sense to a non-technical person. She knew that DD was interpreting the characters on the screen and deducing the programming code and logic that lay behind the confusing jumble of text. He was looking at the actual binary code that made up the module and tracing some of the letters and numbers with his fingers, as though he could understand what they meant.

Although fascinated, Natasha was tired and she looked at her watch. ‘Listen DD, I’m bushed. I need some sleep.’ She turned at the door. ‘I want you to know I am very grateful for what you and your friends have done.’

DD waved, but did not turn around. Natasha walked back quickly and gave him a kiss on the cheek.

That made DD stop and turn round. ‘Goodnight’ he said, touching the spot where she had kissed him.