The Hawk Enigma by J.L. Hancock

Author:J.L. Hancock
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: J.L. Hancock
Published: 2022-01-22T10:58:07+00:00

CHAPTER 29

The Honeypot

DOWNTOWN SAN DIEGO, CALIFORNIA, USA

“How bad is it? What do you think happened?” Janet folded her arms and shook her head.

She set down her cold brew coffee; it didn’t taste the same at Xiphos AI now. The faux grass on the wall seemed tacky. Even the warm San Diego sun shimmering through the windows felt tainted from the cyberattack, the complete loss of their proprietary network, and the very foundation of their company.

“It’s tough to say, honestly. It looks like they were able to get into our network,” the IT guy said.

“But hasn’t it been running this entire time?” Andy asked. His hand rubbed the scraggly growth of hair on his chin as he leaned against the wall. Xiphos employees spied from their workstations, trying to figure out what was happening.

“It has.” The IT guy filtered through several screens monitoring internal network traffic and security protocols. Then he stopped, slack-jawed.

“I hate to say this, but it looks like they have full access to the primary Xiphos network. And…they’ve been running their own code.”

“What do you mean?” Janet asked, her head inches away from the IT guy’s face as she leaned into the monitor.

“Look for yourself. You built the thing,” he replied, trying to clear the way for his boss to see the display.

Andy and Janet filtered through the data until they realized what he meant. In between customer-driven events on the network, random administrative codes using a massive amount of information sporadically spiked in the system.

“I originally thought these were the surges you were doing for that government project you have going on in the back room. But now that I look at it, I realize this is someone else entirely that’s been using our network to process data.”

The irony didn’t escape Andy. Their entire Xiphos Gov network revolved around gaining access to the root of other people’s computers, placing a secure shell on it, and then using its power to supply the processing needs as a service. The difference was that the Xiphos primary network comprised of witting people who volunteered the processing power on their gaming systems at home for Xiphos to use at the company’s discretion. Any time the network was used it cost money. But now someone else was stealing Xiphos’s processing power. If Janet shut down the network to fix this, it meant cutting off all their paying customers from their services as well.

But there was only one solution, and Janet knew it. She had to shut it all off.

Janet pulled out her laptop, connected to the internet via a personal hotspot on her cell phone to keep clear of the Xiphos network, and contacted Delta Zulu.

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