After meeting with several potential business owners about what N & J Investigative Services could do for them, Nigel was eager to get back to his pet malware project. The problem nagged at him. It was unlike anything he had ever seen, and his knowledge of emerging threats was solid, as he spent hours every week learning about the newest malware and their attack vectors.

“Do you want to get something to eat?” Jet said.

“No, I think I’d rather eat at home.”

“I’m tired and don’t feel like cooking anything. Besides, we need to visit the grocery store before we can cook anything.”

“Didn’t you just go to the market?”

“Yes, but since both of us live in the same building as our place of business, the food runs out faster.”

“Okay, but let’s stop by Famous Louie’s for takeout.”

“Again? Don’t you ever get sick of that place? I was thinking of a nice dinner at the harbor,” Jet said.

“I have some work I need to do, so takeout is our best option.”

About an hour later, Nigel was back at his computer.

“April missed our gaming session last night,” Jet said.

“I’m sure she’s tired or something.”

“I don’t think that’s it. She was so excited after our last gaming session—she wanted to do it again last night. She wants to take on the Mad Queen herself, I think.”

“I’m sure it’s nothing, but if it makes you feel better, you can call her in the morning.”

Jet thought about it for a moment before going to bed.

This book is hosted on another platform. Read the official version and support the author's work.

“Try not to stay up too late, Nige, we should be at the shop early. So far we’ve been lucky with walk-in business, and hopefully we can keep that trend going,” she said.

Nigel kissed Jet, then resumed his work on the computer.

Several hours later

“There! I got it,” Nigel said to the empty room.

Nigel’s eyes blurred as he downloaded a sample of the malware. It had taken him most of the night, but he had finally found a sample on one of the many dark web repositories. He was determined to unlock the secrets of how this nasty bug worked. He yawned as he looked at the clock on his computer. It was past one in the morning.

I know I should sleep, but I need to find the source of the malware first.

Nigel loaded the malware special sandbox program that allowed him to disassemble it without infecting his computer. He loaded the most common commands, which were also known as strings. This gave him a clue where the malicious code came from. When he didn’t get any results, he examined the network stack, an area he would check to see how the malware communicated once it was on the victim machine. The beaconing subroutines revealed two IP addresses. One of them was from a well-known address belonging to ProgHub. The other was from a residential block belonging to a cable company in Hawaii. Nigel surmised the malware was accessed from the Hawaiian address, then uploaded to the ProgHub site.

Time to do a backtrace.

Nigel traced the IP address to the island of Oahu. After some additional geolocation, he determined the address belonged to a coffee shop called Ohana Joe’s. Nigel checked a website scanner known as ShowALLD for any information on the coffee shop. He found a list of vulnerable services, including one called EspressoJoe. Nigel loaded another exploitation program called Datasploit that would allow him to hack into known vulnerable systems. He fed the data from the service information he found from the web scanner into his exploitation program.

Did the hacker use a coffee machine as a staging point?

A hacking profile was available, so he downloaded it. Moments later he was accessing a data storage area of an espresso machine. The manufacturer had left a reserved amount of memory on the machine for firmware and feature updates. Coffee was not the only item being served from the smart espresso machine; so was Peter’s malware. Before disconnecting, Nigel checked the connection log from the machine and found another IP address that resolved to a home nearby. Nigel ran a custom scan for anything answering from that IP address and found what he was looking for: a port that resolved to a Colossal Machine client from a suite of commercial hacking tools called BelchSuite.

“Gotcha!” Nigel said.

Just before dawn, Nigel slipped into bed, and Jet stirred. He stared at the ceiling for a very long time as he watched the room fill with light.