Page 75 of Decoding Emma
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.
