Based on network flow traffic, Nigel traced the origin of the IP address that he had identified to the suspected attacker. Time to see who you are! he thought.

He performed a scan of the source system. It was running an operating system (OS) that he was familiar with: an open source version of Ninex, a popular hacker OS. The problem was that more scans would be necessary to determine which flavor of software distribution the intruder was using. The more he knew about it, the more effective he would be at taking down its defenses as well as combating it. He opened his Datasploit program. He was in the habit of updating it regularly so it should have all the latest vulnerabilities and zero-day exploits. The zero-day exploits were the most valuable: they contained vulnerabilities that even the OS developers did not know about yet.

Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

Nigel filtered his scanning results. The suspected intruder was using Ninex KL version 2019.4, which was good news, because 2019.5 had been released just a day ago. He needed to trace down the person responsible for these attacks, but his head started bobbing. How long has it been since I slept? He wondered, but he didn’t know. He needed to inform Jet of this development. Nigel crafted a secure encrypted message with a packet trace file and then sent it to her. He would try to get a few hours’ sleep before he resumed.