Page 54 of Insidious Threats
“Sorry. A sandbox is a virtual environment where you can run a program and analyze its behavior to determine if it’s malicious before you allow it anywhere near your actual programs.”
“But, if I find a physical machine and plug the drive into it, how can the sandbox stop the virus from infecting the box?”
“It can’t. Which is why Pinpoint Partners will make absolutely sure there’s no way to access a machine running Mjölnir until it’s too late to stop it.”
The task suddenly seemed a hundred percent less easy. “So what are you doing now?”
“I’m probing Pinpoint Partners’ network to see if there are any unprotected access points.”
“And?”
August raised his hand and gave the skin above his lip a vigorous rub. Leo’d had enough training in reading body language to know August was hesitant to speak and uncertain about his answer. “I don’t see any vulnerabilities.”
Leo studied his face. “But you don’t believe that’s true, do you?”
“Every network hassomevulnerability. With enough time, maybe I could find it. But this isn’t really what I do. I said it’s a gray area, but that’s not quite right. You probably need a red hat.”
“Come again?”
“You’ve heard of white hat, black hat, and gray hat hackers, right?”
“Sure. White hats are ethical hackers who work to help improve cybersecurity by exposing vulnerabilities. Black hats exploit those vulnerabilities for their own illegal gain, and gray hats are in between. They might be technically breaking the law, but they don’t have malicious intent. Right?”
“That’s close enough for our purposes. A red hat hacker is a hacktivist, someone who hacks to send a message. Like a vigilante.”
“Like Anonymous?”
August snapped his fingers together. “Exactly like Anonymous.”
They were silent for a long moment. Then, Leo asked the obvious question. “Do you know any red hat hackers?”
August’s silence stretched out further. Then he pursed his lips. “I know one.”
“Can you put me in touch with him?”
“Her. And that’s not how it works. I’ll reach out to her. If she’s willing to help you, I’ll let you know.”
Leo clapped him on the shoulder. “Listen, I know I’m putting you in a touchy spot. I appreciate the help. If Lewis was right, and this program’s as dangerous as he said—”
“I know. We need to kill it. I’ll be in touch after I talk to her.” August slid the drive toward Leo.
He pocketed it and left August’s office, pulling his coat on as he headed for the exit. Jordana had offered to pick the twins up from school, but he needed to relieve her and get some food into their bellies, and his own.
28
Gar hit traffic outside Los Angeles. Of course, he did. He still had four-and-half to five hours of driving before he crossed the border and started his new life. He wanted to put as much distance between himself and Sun Valley as he could, as fast as he could. But he’d used the long hours in the car to rubber ducky his situation.
Any programmer or coder worth their salt knew the famous debugging technique. It was a method of working through a problem by verbally processing it. The coder would literally talk to a rubber ducky, pet, stuffed animal—it didn’t really matter—saying the code aloud, line by line, to find the bugs. It was a viral meme because it worked.
And while Gar didn’t have a rubber ducky with him, he did have his vintage hula dancer toy mounted to his dashboard. So as the miles unspooled and the plastic hula girl bobbled and danced, Gar talked out his problem.
He needed to disappear. Possibly forever. But he’d need money of some kind.
The money was the easy part. With a cheap laptop and an internet connection, he’d be able to find freelance debugging work, anonymously and quickly. The disappearing was trickier. He needed to get rid of his car. But when, and how? Crossing the border in it seemed like a dangerously stupid move.
He didn’t know how exactly powerful the person behind Mjölnir was, but he knew how powerful the program was so he knew enough to be terrified. Rich, powerful people didn’t like loose ends. Every billionaire-adjacent schlub who ‘committed suicide’ in prison, ‘fell out a window,’ or ‘got hit by a car’ was proof enough of that.
His chat with the dashboard dancer convinced him to ditch the car in San Diego and take the trolley to San Ysidro, where he could cross the border into Tijuana on foot, then rent a car for cash.
