“Hey, Alexei suggested that we work together. Is that okay?” Nigel said, approaching Melissa in the war room.
Melissa looked up through swollen eyes. Her face looked like someone had used it to tenderize a side of beef. Despite her injuries, she was beautiful. Nigel opened his laptop and got to work sorting through all the files he had on the mysterious hacker; he hadn’t had time to examine the images he’d gathered from the intruder’s system. Nigel write-protected the memory image first because it was much smaller. He had a set of scripts already set up, so with little effort, he could pull common information out of memory.
Nigel had a knack for solving any kind of computer puzzle, and a memory image was like a puzzle. He did this by finding basic information about his adversary; for instance, knowing the operating system was valuable because it gave him knowledge about certain tools that came with—or could be run on—a particular computer. He kicked off the discovery script.
“What are you doing?” Melissa asked.
“I got this memory image from a hacker who I suspect is behind the attacks against the Collective and Black Iris. I’m trying to find out how advanced the hacker is by running my discovery script,” Nigel said.
“How can you tell that by looking at their computer?” Melissa asked with genuine interest.
“If the attacker is less experienced, they will rely on tools built by others. My discovery script knows about these tools and will alert me to them. However, if this script doesn’t list any results, then that is my first clue to detecting how advanced they are. Think of it like a thermometer: the hotter the temperature, the more dangerous the adversary.”
“If you find nothing, what is the next step?”
“Then it will take a little more effort. I will run other scripts to check for things, like network addresses, code fragments, or anything that could identify the intruder. The idea is to discover the hacker’s intent or motive, which will provide more clues. It is an iterative, time-consuming process—”
“Nigel, sorry for interrupting, but I need you to give Dahlia the information that we discussed,” Alexei said, approaching him.
Nigel nodded as he brought up another window on his laptop. He gathered the information and sent it to Dahlia via an encrypted message. As he finished, a loud beep alerted him that the script results were in. He examined the results. None of the tools he was looking for matched.
“Well, I guess this guy is smarter than I thought,” Nigel said.
Melissa watched with interest.
Nigel ran additional search commands on the system logs that he gathered for additional clues. He gathered the time zone information from the attacking system: GMT + 3.
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Why is that familiar? Nigel thought.
The results of the deep file analysis came up with some internet relay chat (IRC) activity. While it encrypted the contents of those logs, he allocated a few of his system threads to work on decrypting them as he worked on other areas of the memory and disk. He recovered about five images using his slack space scripts.
Probably porn!
“I have to open these files. They might contain some explicit content, so please turn away if you are offended,” Nigel said to Melissa.
“That’s okay, I have a thick skin,” she replied.
Nigel opened them one at a time. The first image contained the exterior of a modern-looking building. Nigel checked the file for anything hidden.
“What are you doing there?” Melissa asked. “I saw you open the file—then you used another tool and made the image look like an X-ray.”
“I’m looking for hidden messages. The process is called steganography. Hackers often hide secrets such as messages or even parts of encryption keys inside ordinary files like pictures. It’s like hiding something in plain sight.”
“Wow, I had no idea!” Melissa said.
Nigel repeated the process for the remaining pictures. The last one made Nigel gasp. This looks like . . . Milford.
It was a grainy surveillance picture of a picnic table behind some buildings. He could make out three people in the images. He enhanced the images as best he could. He could make out three shapes: two male and a female.
Looks like our meeting spot.
It was their picnic table, which meant that this laptop was Gregor’s!
Nigel checked the decryption process for the chat logs: 11 percent decrypted and still counting. Nigel found terminal logs with a cache of network packet trace files. He needed more processing power, as the encryption was taking over half of what his laptop could provide.
Time to use Milford High’s lab again.
Nigel stopped the decryption process and opened a secure tunnel to the Milford Lab servers. Uploading files required additional authentication, so he grabbed his phone. He froze when he saw the pop-up message on the lock screen.
One new voice mail message from unknown.
Does my antenna work again?
He dialed the number and listened. It was a message from Jet!
Afterwards, Nigel held his breath as he approached Natasha. He just handed her the phone. She gave him a thoughtful look, and then tapped “play” on the voice message. Her eyes widened as she listened.
“She’s alive, and with Jeremiah?” Natasha said.
“Yes, and that’s not all. The hacker’s computer belongs to Gregor!”
Alexei and Dahlia came over.
“What’s all the excitement about?” Alexei asked.
Nigel relayed all the details.
“Let me see if I have this right. Your girlfriend is with Jeremiah?” Alexei said.
Nigel played the voice message back with the speaker on.
“That makes no sense. It sounded like she’d just had a friendly chat with the bloke,” Dahlia said.
“No, she was calling to verify Nigel’s involvement,” Natasha said.
“With what?” Dahlia asked.
“He must have told her a lie. That’s the only explanation,” Natasha said.
“Right! And he gave her a phone to call Nigel?” Dahlia said.
“You’re right, something doesn’t add up here,” Alexei said.
“Never mind about that. I have actionable data off Gregor’s laptop,” Nigel said.
“I just need to upload the chat logs I found to a more powerful server. My laptop isn’t powerful enough,” Nigel said.
“You’re welcome to use any of our servers,” Alexei said.
“With all of the network latency outside the region, I would utilize my lab computer at Milford High School. It should be able to crack these messages in less than an hour.”
“Make it happen,” Alexei said.
Nigel ran back to his laptop.