“I get that.”I pulled my laptop from my backpack.“Do you have a back door into the system?”
“Yes, but that’s not how they got in.Like I said, there was no breach.”
I could almost feel Asher’s frustration.There was even an overlay of anxiety.My mind was going full tilt, and I kept coming back to the same conclusion, the only scenario that made any sense at all.But there was no way I was going to reveal even a hint of what I was thinking until I was sure.
“Understood.But I can use a program I developed to go in through the back door to see if it can shed more light on the situation.”
“You can do that?”Asher dropped into the chair next to me.
“Can’t you?”
“I’ve never needed anything like that.My side hustle in undergrad and grad school was white hat hacking.Ben, me, and one other person were hired to breakintonetworks to find their vulnerabilities.We never thought of developing anything like that.”
“Then let me show you.”I brought up my program on my laptop and then Asher connected me to the mainframe through the back door.Hopefully, because the app was running on Asher’s credentials, the system would allow the program to run without erecting any containment.
While I was setting the sniffer’s search parameters, Asher filled Ben in on what we were trying to do.Ben authorized my laptop on the intranet and gave me a couple of lines of code that would allow the program unfettered access to the mainframe, and once the input was complete, I let the program off the chain.If there was any kind of pattern that set off the intrusion alarms, my program would find it.
Three nerve racking hours later…jackpot.“Here.”I pointed to the screen.“Look at this.Activity on the R&D server triggered the alarms, and—”
“That much we already know, Emma.”
“If you’d let me finish…”
Asher pointed to a notation.“Is this what I think it is?”
“That’s what I was trying to tell you.What you see is the initial discovery.But look four lines down.That’s the breakdown.Short version… Someone or someones accessed an encrypted partition on the R&D server.I don’t know if it was a brute force attack or credentialed.The logs will tell us that.Anyway, once in, they tried to access this file.”I tapped on the screen.“Do you have any idea what this is?”
I turned to Asher.He didn’t answer right away, then his brow furrowed, and a minute later, he picked up his cellphone, tapped the screen, swiped twice, tapped again, and put the phone to his ear.The person on the other end answered right away.
“Ben, me.Open our text app…Yeah, the encrypted one.I’m going to send you something, and once you identify it, I’ll need you to securely delete the text immediately.”Asher looked at me and then took a photo of the screen.Swipe, swipe, tap, thumbs tapping the screen, and swoosh.
Almost immediately a soft bell, likely a confirmation that the text had been received.“Are you thinking what I’m thinking?… Yeah, Emma’s sniffer found it.I need you to see if there’s a pattern.”Asher closed his eyes in what was clearly an ‘oh, shit’ moment.“Access and keystroke.I’ll have Emma send you the complete file from the app.How long do you need?”He massaged his forehead.“Got it.Conference room in fifteen.… Yeah, Wall off R&D, then reopen the network.… I know.Marcus is gonna go ballistic when you tell him.… Absolutely tell him why, but don’t call him on the house phone; call his cell.”
No house phone.Call his cell?Had Asher…
“We’ll be able to give everyone more details in the meeting.… Absolutely.I want to keep this as sequestered as possible.… You’ve got your hands full.I’ll make the calls.… See you in in a few.… I’ll definitely pass the word.”
Asher ended the call and stared at the screen.I wanted to take his hand, squeeze his shoulder, something to let him know I had his back, but it looked like he was trying to gather himself.
I sipped my now-cold coffee and took a bite of my muffin.He’d mentioned to Ben about me sending a file, so I went in and found the sniffer’s backup file and compressed it so that it would be ready to go.Just as I finished up, Asher gently grasped my shoulder.
“Thanks for your help, Emma.You probably saved us hours of scouring logs and trying to collate gigabytes of information.Ben said to tell you dinner and the best wine money can buy are on him Friday, anywhere you want to go.”
I rubbed his arm, then took his hand.“We’ll figure that out later.I have the file ready.Where do you want it sent and how?”While Asher was on the phone, I had more time to study the findings.I was now nearly certain of my original hypothesis, but I decided to wait until the meeting and hearing Ben’s information.
Asher leaned forward, picked up his coffee, and drained at least half the contents.He put the cup down and laced his fingers on the desk, studying the desktop like it had all the answers he needed if he could just tease them out.
“I’ve heard that when you work for a company long enough, your co-workers become like a second family.It wasn’t until FI that I understood the truth behind that.”When he looked at me, his eyes looked infinitely sad.He’s figured it out.Oh, Asher…
“When a member of your family betrays you, for whatever reason, the first emotion is probably a mixture of disbelief and sadness, and they say the next emotion is anger.Kind of like the stages of grief in a really fucked up order.I have a feeling this is going to get a lot worse before it’s over.”
I knew what he was feeling and no longer cared that we were in the office.I stood up and put my arms around him.He embraced me and rested his head at my waist.What could I say?Best to just be there.We held each other until he reached for my arms and took my hands in his.I leaned over and brushed a kiss over his lips then on his forehead.
“We’ve got this, Asher, and I’ve got your back.Now where and how do you want me to send this file?”
Chapter Thirty-One
Asher
