The Doomsday Code by Sara Yager

Author:Sara Yager [Sara Yager]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Sandstone Books
Published: 2023-11-07T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter 33

With physical access to Zhao’s PC, Adrian knew that what they were after shouldn’t be difficult. But first, they had to get into it. Adrian focused his attention on the large display. With two quick keystrokes, he enabled the system-level command prompt using a simple login bypass trick. A small black pop-up window appeared, awaiting a system-level prompt.

He pulled his trusty flash drive from his pocket. So far, the small storage device was proving itself the most useful weapon he had grabbed from the safe that morning. This time, Adrian would be accessing a different exploit: a small but powerful program that could siphon a Windows user’s password out of the computer’s memory.

Olivia appeared at his side, watching with an amused expression on her face.

He ran a series of quick commands, and satisfied that all had gone well, he entered one final command:

@getLogonPasswords

Within seconds, Zhao’s Windows logon credentials appeared on the screen.

“How did you do that?”

He shrugged. “It’s easier than you’d think.”

Olivia didn’t look convinced.

“Honestly—any moderately intelligent fifth grader with internet access could manage it.” Unfortunately, what Adrian was doing now had become all too easy for basement dwellers in nation-states all over the world. A devastating NSA leak in 2017 by an organization referring to themselves as the ‘Shadow Brokers’ had unleashed a slew of powerful hacking tools into the public domain—tools that for decades had been kept off the books, hidden from public view via shell companies, mercenaries, black budgets, and NDAs.

Olivia suddenly looked hopeful. “What do we look for now?”

“Let’s see what Zhao has been up to online?”

Another series of quick keystrokes gave him access to an “exploit” program. A simple internet search and a few seconds to download the 300 MB file, and he would be able to access the system’s cache, which held a convenient record of everything from Zhao’s keystrokes to screenshots to his web search history.

Olivia watched over his shoulder. “It’s that easy to hack all of that?”

Adrian flashed a lopsided grin. “You didn’t really think anything you did on your network was private, did you?”

She shrugged. “Guess not. What did you find?”

Adrian shuffled through the resulting data record, first looking at Zhao’s most recently accessed files. He focused on the largest. “It’s a video file. Shall we?”

Olivia nodded.

“It will take me a minute to decompress,” he said, navigating the on-screen prompts. Several seconds later, a media player had loaded, and the file began to run. The screen went dark, and the sound of crashing waves filled the room. Adrian leaned back. Beside him, Olivia also settled in to watch the eight-minute video.

The sound of instrumental music suddenly filled the room. After a moment, orbital satellite images appeared. Among a blanket of stars, planet Earth came into view. The music continued, increasing in tenor and volume as the camera cascaded through the stratosphere, plummeting towards Earth.

When the camera finally came to a stop, they were atop an oceanside cliff, and the famous visage of Lang Zhao appeared. Dressed in all black, his arms were outstretched—poised as if to jump.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.