‘No, we’re not,’ said Henley. ‘When Fox-Carnell first went missing we were told that you were unable to track her because your systems had exceeded their data storage capacity, but it turns out that was wrong.’
‘But that’s what happened. We had a server migration issue which in turn led to the data storage issue.’
‘How come you weren’t able to produce the electronic monitoring reports for Fox-Carnell?’ Ezra demanded. ‘The only reason you couldn’t do that was because someone who works for you, shut down your systems and made it look like you were hacked. You didn’t have a server migration or data storage issue.’
Kaiden opened his mouth and closed it again as Henley shot Ezra a warning look.
‘Why are there two different versions of events?’ Henley asked, watching Kaiden sip his coffee, buying time.
‘I was on annual leave when the systems went down,’ Kaiden said eventually. ‘No one told me what happened with the systems until I came back.’
‘That’s not an explanation.’
‘Soteria secured a six-year contract to deliver electronic monitoring services to England and Wales for the Ministry of Justice,’ said Kaiden. ‘That contract is worth £200 million with atwo-year extension available worth another £75 million. The contract is up for renewal in nine months. I can only assume that it would be better for the company to say that the systems went down because of a data capacity issue.’
‘Are you saying that this company released a statement blaming the issue on data storage because they didn’t want to lose a government contract?’ asked Henley.
Kaiden nodded. ‘It wouldn’t be the first time.’
‘So, what do you know?’
‘The systems went down on Tuesday afternoon when I was on the Eurostar to Paris. I was aware of the issues but the Wi-Fi on the train was terrible, and it was difficult to send and receive emails. I did see the messages telling me we had a data issue but when I came back to work on Friday morning, I knew that couldn’t have been right because all of our offenders’ movements would still be recorded.’
‘Did you think you’d been hacked or that it was an internal error?’
‘I thought it was an internal error initially,’ said Kaiden. ‘The network was compromised from 3 a.m. Tuesday morning which is, for lack of a better word, the dead zone. 95 per cent of curfews start between 6 p.m. and 9 p.m. and we usually start receiving breach alerts from 6 p.m. to about midnight. After midnight, it’s dead, there might be the odd one or two breaches, but no one is usually breaching at 1 a.m. and no one is in the office monitoring server activity after hours. The network then went back online at 3.18 a.m.. At 6.02 p.m. on Tuesday afternoon the entire network was compromised. I thought it was a hack because compromising the network for a short period of time, a few minutes or an hour, is the reconnaissance stage of a cyber-attack.’
‘You said youthoughtit was hacked? What made you unsure?’
‘There was no command and control of the network, which is stage six of a cyber-attack. Usually, when someone hacks a network like this, they download everything they can, release malware into the system, lock us out of the network and start demanding eyewatering sums as ransom but that didn’t happen here. No obvious control of the network. No mass download. No ransom.’
‘Told you,’ Ezra muttered.
‘So, what were they doing in the system, other than shutting it down?’ asked Henley.
‘I’m not entirely sure,’ Kaiden admitted.
‘I’ll be able to tell you, if you let me take a look at your systems,’ Ezra said excitedly.
‘I don’t think that would be wise,’ Kaiden answered warily. ‘Our systems have already been compromised, and you don’t have the authorisation’
‘We’re the police, well the boss is, and the fact is someone out there,’ Ezra spun around in his chair and pointed at the office, ‘has been poking around in your system and getting up to no good.’
‘How long would it take you?’ Henley asked Ezra, before Kaiden could voice any further objections.
‘Not long, once I get access from the big man here. Also, if you think they’re setting you up to take the fall, you’d have ammunition.’
Kaiden tapped his fingers against his empty cup as he watched Ezra, a wry smile spreading across his lips. ‘Let’s go,’ he said.
Ezra released a low whistle as Kaiden pushed open the doors to the room that housed his cyber-security team. Half of the team were wearing noise cancelling headphones and didn’t look up when they entered the room and were led to an empty desk. Kaiden leaned over the keyboard, inserted his ID card and typed in his password. ‘All yours.’
‘I’m not being funny, but your cyber-security is lax,’ said Ezra five minutes later as he stared intently at the screen, his fingers dancing across the keyboard.
‘I have no idea what I’m looking at,’ Henley admitted as she watched the expressions on Kaiden’s face morph from intrigue to impressed as Ezra worked.
‘Neither do I,’ Kaiden confessed.
‘Ok, it looks as though I was wrong, and your systems were accessed externally which doesn’t quite make … do you mind if I copy data?’ Ezra asked. He reached for his rucksack and pulled out a memory stick. ‘Most hackers leave some kind of digital footprint, think of it like a graffiti artist leaving a tag. They just can’t help themselves.’
