Stories

n3m0 was sitting in the dark in his apartment. Clawfinger’s music was roaring out of his speakers but he didn’t hear them. He was numb to the world and had been staring at the contract from Beateval for quite some time. Data entry. n3m0 knew Jennifer couldn’t fire him, instead she had offered him an even worse job than his present one. Data entry, it all seemed to be a cruel joke. I’m not working in data entry. His new salary would be 65 percent of his former one, which wasn’t a blast to start with.

His current standards, which were neither stylish nor glamorous, wouldn’t be at all possible with the new pay cut. He would have to move to an even worse neighborhood than what he now called home.

n3m0 wasn’t afraid of change and wouldn’t have minded giving up his apartment and making other sacrifices - if he saw a reward at the end of the tunnel. However, he had a hard time picturing himself working in help desk, data entry was just beyond his imagination.

The thought of getting another job at Exibice was attractive, but Mark was no friend of his. n3m0 didn’t even know if the company had a real CIO, he was pretty sure Mark was in charge of everything. He’ll never give me a job.

n3m0 turned up the volume.

“I’ve been standing on the edge of the roof looking down
I’ve been looking at the people that are gathering around
I’ve been here for an hour or maybe even more
just looking at the people that I’ve never seen before
stupid little faces are all I can see
those silly little suckers are all laughing at me”

n3m0 didn’t know what would happen without a job but he knew he couldn’t work for Beateval. At this stage he didn’t care how he would manage. Sitting in the dark, emotions were washing over him. n3m0 tried to identify them all; anger, hatred, betrayal, revenge. Suddenly he found himself smiling.

“one foot over there’s no time to turn around
both feet are over and I’m heading for the ground
I’m flying in the air and I can feel the cool breeze
the people on the pavement have gone into a freeze
no space no time it’s like walking on the moon”

I am going to jump, he realized, they will pay. n3m0 would love to punish them and be there when they caught on to what he was going to their company. But that wasn’t an option. He wanted revenge, badly. Responsibility was of little interest for n3m0. He would be happy to take credits, but at the same time he realized that that wasn’t going to happen. n3m0 loved to brag about his doings, but he hoped he would be able to stay quiet this time.

He executed a simple bash script which in turn called cdrecord. When his freshly burned CD was ejected he carefully removed it and labeled it.

Tags: security, stories, fiction, insider threat, disgruntled employee

After the meeting with Jennifer, n3m0 knew he was in trouble. Since he wasn’t able to find anything good on the job sites he had tried to work harder and be more pleasant around the office.

This new routine lasted a week. When n3m0 learned that Jennifer had promised Mark that no one would be fired as a result of the acquisition, he figured he was in the clear.

In another week n3m0 was back to his old self again. Jennifer was standing in front of his desk, but this time she wasn’t smiling.
“Welcome aboard,” she said in a voice devoid of emotion, n3m0 was handed a blue envelope with Beateval’s logo on the cover.
“Thank you mam,” n3m0 sounded almost perky. I have you strapped around my finger.

n3m0 let the envelope lie on his desk, the others had opened theirs, he could see them reading the documents inside and later signing them. Probably employment contracts. As long as n3m0 still had a job he didn’t care about the specifics of the contract. Helpdesk is still helpdesk.

Mark walked in to the office. “Hello team! Your desks at Beateval will be ready in two weeks, Jennifer wants you to move in asap.” He faced Thomas. “I guess congratulations are in order.”
Thomas had a smug smile, “thank you sir.”
“Good luck in the future, all of you,” before he left the cubicle farm he made eye contact with n3m0 and shook his head.

n3m0 wasn’t the only one interested in what Mark had been talking about.
“I’ve been promoted,” Thomas said proudly, “at Beateval I’ll be team leader for this unit.” n3m0’s jaw dropped, what the?
“Jennifer also said she might put me in charge of other departments at Beateval.”

“We’ll still make you get the coffee,” Simon joked.
“One more word like that and I’ll make you my assistant and you’ll be making coffee.”
“Seriously what did she see in you that you’ve hidden so well from us?” Jack laughed.
Amen, thought n3m0.
“Mostly my people skills, but lets face it, we all know I’m brilliant on every level. Remember I’m you’re boss now so you’ll have to agree with me. I’ll be expecting some serious ass kissing.” Then he let loose that laugh n3m0 had come to hate so much.

Unbelievable, if they made Thomas a manager they damn well better have made me CEO, n3m0 ripped open his envelope and started reading. He felt a chill through his body. n3m0 could picture Jennifer dressed up in a yellow suit with a crazed look, jumping around with a katana in her hands and lopping his paycheck in half.

n3m0 reread the contract and was overwhelmed by a feeling of defeat.

Tags: security, stories, fiction, insider threat, disgruntled employee

When n3m0 came to work on Thursday he thought for a moment that he was there before Thomas. That’s a first. Then he found out that Thomas had in fact been there for quite some time and was having a meeting with Jennifer.

The last few days had been very slow, and n3m0 had managed to put together a résumé. The result didn’t sound very impressive, but n3m0 couldn’t tell what was wrong with it.

Thomas was walking toward him. “You’re up.”
“I’m what?” n3m0 asked annoyingly.
“It’s your turn, a little ‘one on one’ with Jennifer.”
“What are you talking about?”
“Jennifer is informing us about her company and wants to talk to each one of us.” Thomas informed.
“What’s the verdict?” n3m0 asked.
“Actually there won’t be much change, though Beateval seems to have a much stricter dress code than we do.” Thomas smiled, looking at n3m0’s t-shirt which had a picture from the 8-bit version of Donkey Kong on it.

“Dress code!?” n3m0 exploded, “we answer the freaking phone!”
“Well we’ve had some bosses here to show our facilities to customers.”
“Bosses? The only time we get executives down here are when their secretaries are on vacation and they get lost on their way to the bathroom.”
Thomas seemed shocked, “Mark was here the other day.”
Are you for real? “Oh, silly me, we got a top shot to visit us when he was shutting down the department.”
“Actually merge our dep…” Thomas tried.
“But can you imagine I forgot to bask in his executive aura. I’m told it’s quite majestic!” n3m0 wondered if Thomas understood sarcasm.

“Excuse me, are you ready,” someone asked.
“WHAT?” n3m0 turned to see Jennifer with a disapproving look on her face.
“Your interview.”
“Yeah, I’m coming,” n3m0 said to her breasts. She turned and walked towards the meeting room.
As n3m0 followed her Thomas called to him. “Hey it’s not that bad really.” Then he made a thumbs up sign and mouthed. “Good luck”. n3m0 considered giving him the birdie just to see his reaction, but he contained himself. Instead he raised his thumb.

Jennifer had been talking for some time, n3m0 wasn’t listening as much as watching her. She leaned over the table and pointed to a chart. After a while she fell silent. n3m0 looked up from her cleavage and met her eyes, they were hard and cold.
“Are you listening?,” she asked with a sharp tone, changing position so she was sitting up more straight.

“Yes, of course, you were saying I was the top performer in this department,” n3m0 tried a smile, it wasn’t returned.
“I said nothing of the sort,” Jennifer continued in a cold voice.
“But,” n3m0 said pointing at the chart while stealing a glance at her breasts. Jennifer stood up.
“What I said was that you work fast, unfortunately we value customer satisfaction higher than speed.”

Ain’t this going swell, n3m0 was focusing hard to look at her face. He didn’t know if he should stand up too or remain seated. n3m0 tried to remain quite for the remainder of the interview, only opening his mouth to answer her direct questions. At the end her voice wasn’t as cold as it had been, which n3m0 guessed was a good thing. When he was leaving the room she called after him. “Good luck with your application then.”
“Application?” n3m0 was confused.
“For the job, do you have a résumé?”
“For what job?”
“A job at Beateval, wasn’t that obvious?” n3m0 could have sworn Jennifer was amused.
“Wait, you mean I have to apply for my own job?”
“No, your current job won’t exist anymore. As the help desk resource is transferred to us from Exibice your employment with them will end.” Jennifer smiled for the first time since n3m0 had entered the room. “You are of course free to submit your résumé to see what Beateval has to offer. If you have a résumé that is?”
“Yes,” n3m0 said, the word didn’t come out much louder than a whisper.
“Excellent, good luck then. Will you please send in Simon.”

Shit, shit, shit, n3m0 cursed his bad luck.

Tags: security, stories, fiction, insider threat, disgruntled employee

n3m0 was furious after the meeting, he headed straight for his computer. I’m leaving this ship, he thought, time to write a resumé. He whipped up notepad.

After twenty minutes he was still staring at a completely blank screen. He wrote “bush hid the facts” saved and closed the file. When opening it again he laughed at the results. I’m going nowhere with this.

n3m0’s financial situation was a disaster at best, in reality he needed any kind of job he could get. I refuse to spend my days in the land of always helpdesk. He had even taken a few mcp exams to please his evil overlords and now this!

According to his calculations he would last just over eight weeks without a steady income. A few things would have to be sold on eBay in order to buy food during that time.

After surfing job sites for an hour, n3m0’s hope was quickly fading. I might have to work at Beateval while I’m looking for another job. n3m0 felt like screaming out loud.

The thought of working from home had crossed his mind many times but he just wasn’t landing enough jobs to afford it. n3m0 always got the feeling that he was lowest down on the food chain both at work and among his online friends.

It was just minutes before five and n3m0 had “worked” enough for the day He was out of the building before the computer had finished shutting down.

At home he logged in to his online bank. I wonder how hard it would be to set up a phishing site, n3m0 thought as he saw his balance.

Seeing that orion was online he shot of a ping.

n3m0: sup?

It took a few minutes for orion to answer.

orion: busy
n3m0: with a job?
orion: yep
n3m0: anything for me?
orion: no
n3m0: come on man, anything?
orion: no, listen I’m busy
n3m0: You hardly never have anything for me anymore
orion: bull, I gave you a job just a few weeks ago
n3m0: But that was just a joke, you said so yourself
orion: so?
n3m0: what do you mean so!? It was a joke
orion: you took the money
n3m0: it was $800!!!
orion: not my problem, by the way when was the last time you shared a gig?
n3m0: screw you!

orion disconnected.

Tags: security, stories, fiction, insider threat

“As I said earlier this is Jennifer from Beateval.” Mark said to his helpdesk staff. n3m0 checked his watch. 2:55 PM, I think I’ll have an executive lunch hour tomorrow. Looking around at the other drones in helpdesk, they all seemed to be smiling at Jennifer. n3m0 couldn’t really blame the other guys; she looked fabulous. But when they were feeling anticipation, n3m0 was closer to hostility.

When she started to speak her words never registered in n3m0’s mind, instead he found himself traveling to Middle Earth.

There was a long silence. At last Frodo spoke with hesitation. “I believed that you were a friend before the letter came,” he said, “or at least I wished to. You have frightened me several times tonight, but never in the way that servants of the Enemy would, or so I imagine. I think one of his spies would - well, seem fairer and feel fouler, if you understand.”
Jennifer is fair but feels foul, n3m0 found himself agreeing with Frodo’s wisdom.
“I see,” laughed Strider. “I look foul and feel fair. Is that it? All that is gold does not glitter, not all those that wander are lost.”
“Did the verses apply to you then?” asked Frodo. “I could not make out what they were about. But how did you know that they were in Gandalf’s letter, if you have never seen it?”
“I did not know,” he answered. “But I am Aragorn, and the verses most definitely were not about Jennifer.” Sam said nothing.

As Jennifer stopped talking, n3m0’s consciousness returned to the office. Seeing her with new eyes he thought dreamingly, my precious.

“Let’s save the questions for later,” Mark interrupted the explosion in the room. “As Ms. Hartpence was saying her company is one that specializes in call center services just like this helpdesk department.”
“We are going to outsource helpdesk to Beateval, for most of you that will mean you’ll have closer to work.”

n3m0 almost laughed. Remembering the visiting address from Beateval’s website he knew he would be adding at least half an hours travel in each direction.

Well isn’t this ironic, I start working in this dump in order to climb a ladder which is knocked down by those above and now sold by the man in charge. n3m0’s eyes found Jennifer’s cleavage, I wonder if this was a financial decision.

n3m0 was having trouble staying focused on the discussion and he missed Simon’s question.
“To be frank, it’s my fault,” Mark answered, “lately I haven’t had time to involve myself in helpdesk.”
I think what you’re trying to say is that you haven’t cared enough.
“And I know that Jennifer will out perform me any day, besides I’ve heard they have just as good dental care as we do.”
The group chuckled.
“No Mark, that’s actually wrong. Ours is much better!” Jennifer showed off her perfect white teeth.
The group laughed.

The meeting went on for an hour; Jennifer seemed to be charming the lot of them. n3m0 on the other hand was feeling weak. At the end of the meeting he could see an imagined BSD demon jumping up and down on his shoulders. Over and over it was screaming “Division by zero, division by zero!”

Tags: security, stories, fiction, insider threat

“Simon isn’t here,” Thomas informed them, “he’s at the dentist this morning.”
“The dentist” Mark was clearly disappointed, “so when will he be back?”
Thomas checked the Outlook calendar. “He’s coming after lunch.”
“Can you stay until then?” Mark asked Jennifer.
“Sure, that’s no problem.”
“Okay, great,” he turned to his staff. “We’ll be back after lunch. Make sure everyone, including Simon, are here.”

Whey they left, the cubicle farm came alive with chatter. n3m0 never spoke much during these types of events, instead he tried to listen and make sense of the information.

It turned out that no one had a clue that Mark and Jennifer had been sitting in meetings. n3m0 sighed, well isn’t that bloody strange, we never know what that guy is up to.

“She kind of remind me of someone famous.” n3m0 didn’t hear who said it but knew it was Thomas.
“Yeah, doesn’t she?” Jack agreed.
Is this really relevant? n3m0 shook his head.
“I think she might have appeared in a movie,” Thomas continued “but I’m not positive.”
“You know what, someone should Google her ass.” Jack laughed.
n3m0 had had enough, trying his best to sound like a fairy princess he said, “yes why don’t we Google her fine ass, lets just hope no one else is called Jennifer. Hell with such a pretty face she might have a page rank of nine.”
“We never got her last name, did we?” Thomas sounded disappointed.

However stupid n3m0 thought it was at first, it gave him an idea. He opened up Firefox and typed, [Ctrl]+K, Beateval Services, [Enter]. The Google results presented him with Beateval’s home page.

He found a picture of Jennifer among the executives. Her full name was Jennifer Hartpence. The thought of sharing the information with the others never crossed n3m0’s mind, he didn’t see how he could profit by telling his coworkers. n3m0 liked the term “need to know basis”, as long as it didn’t apply to him.

He clicked on the about link which described the company. When he was done he continued to read about their services, their customers, their news archive. He went back to the search page and checked the other results for Beateval.

All in all he did not like his findings.

Tags: security, stories, fiction, insider threat

Some people equate their work with their life. They are passionate about that they do for a living. Before they fall asleep at night they think about their jobs, when they wake up in the morning they are already thinking about how to solve a problem. At night they dream about completing their current project, just so they can start tackling the next one. None of this however would correctly describe the way n3m0 felt about his work.

He hated what he was doing to bring in the cash and despised his coworkers. The last eighteen months n3m0 had been working in the help desk department at Exibice Logistics. The single reason he had taken the job was that someone in a newsgroup had recommended that he take a low paid entry job, learn all he could from those above him and work his way up. The problem was that the server and network guys didn’t want anything to do with the help desk staff.

Instead n3m0 was stuck with “buddies” like Thomas. When n3m0 thought of Thomas his brain translated his name to Ned Flanders. Working at Exibice had if anything made it a pain to watch the Simpsons. If at all possible he would rather have had bonsai buddy as a colleague.

It was Monday, and as usual Thomas was there before n3m0.
“Did you hear about the guy with the red paperclip, that he traded for a house?” Thomas asked.
Of course, n3m0 thought, that’s last week’s news.
“Yeah, I read about it.”
“Can’t do much but congratulate the man, can you?”
“Congratulate, no” n3m0 muttered, “you can’t”. When he had read about it he had been absolutely pissed. Why can’t I come up with an idea like that? n3m0 had been thinking hard after that but an idea never entered his mind.

The login scripts seemed to take for ages. What the hell are those guys doing? n3m0 dismissed the idea of checking the netlogon share, he wasn’t that interested. When his email finally loaded he could hear Thomas’ voice on the phone.
“Imagine, for just one red paper clip. I sure wonder what I could get for a blue one,” and then laughter which would make angels cry or at least kill off small animals. “Or a green one,” more laughter. “Pink!” n3m0 could see Thomas drying the tears from his eyes.

Dear god, spare me. n3m0 wished he had a hearing aid so he could turn it off. After ten minutes he was free of the painful experience and could in peace go through his inbox.

Later on when n3m0 looked up from his screen he saw an absolutely beautiful woman smiling at him. His heart leaped, he was about to smile back but she broke the eye contact and watched the others in the help desk department. Then n3m0 realized she was there with Mark Archer, the CTO of Exibice Logistics.

“Hello everybody, this is Jennifer from Beateval Services.”
“Hi, guys,” Jennifer said with a growing smile to the group.
“Hi, Jennifer” n3m0 found himself saying together with the rest of them.
“As you probably know, myself and Jennifer have been meeting a few times and have come to an understanding.”
Jennifer stepped in. “We’d like to inform you all about our plans.”

Tags: security, stories, fiction, insider threat

Friday 10:22 AM, at Meriabeck.

cbrooks: Thank God it’s Friday!
Haven: No shit, I can’t wait to get out of here
cbrooks: Got any plans for later?
Haven: Yeah, Fred was talking about barbecuing want to join us for a few beers and perhaps a game of Risk?
cbrooks: Sounds great!
Haven: Nice, so what’s up?
cbrooks: Not much, I have to check the backup tapes, but things seem to be quite slow today.
Haven: Man, I hate that! It’s boring to no end.
cbrooks: Well it’s nice enough on some days, I might start doing the reporting for WSUS if nothing comes up.
Connection timed out

“Hi Christopher, Jake’s printer doesn’t work and he wants it fixed asap.” Mary was Jake Gordon’s assistant and Jake usually sent her running to Christopher Brooks, the sys admin at Meriabeck, whenever something on the network didn’t work.
“His printer?” Christopher sounded very confused, “I thought it was the sales department’s printer.”
Mary smiled, “well he wants it fixed yesterday”.
“But it was working yesterday, why didn’t he print the document then?” Christopher joked, opening up Firefox and typing in http://p-ljc-sales/.

Server not found

He opened a shell instead:

ping p-ljc-sales.lan.meriabeck.com [enter]

Unknown host p-ljc-sales.lan.meriabeck.com

Connection timed out, Christopher got an uneasy feeling when he thought about his irc session timing out.

Kathy Delgado walked into his office and blurted out. “Chris I’m unable to send emails, and the phones don’t work”.
“Hang on,” Christopher said typing commands:

nslookup [enter]

The current directory is invalid.

c: [enter]
nslookup [enter]

*** Default servers are not available
Default Server: UnKnown
Address: 127.0.0.1

“Did you say the phones didn’t work?” Christopher turned his attention to Kathy.
“Yep, both of them died when I was talking. When can you get the mail working?”
“Were you talking on both your phones at the same time?,” Mary asked with a laugh.

Christopher wasn’t listening any more, he was running to the server room.

Inside the server room several of the servers had blue screened, others where shutting down. Within minutes there were a crowd of people in the server room, all of them wondering when everything would be back to normal, some of them were screaming.

What Christopher got most annoyed with were the ones trying to help or guess what had happened.

When someone asked, “have you checked the UPS’?” he almost cried. The best thing that happened during the morning was when Mary brought him a cup of coffee. As always the coffee at work tasted like a bad joke but right now it was sorely needed.

After bringing the first server back to life Christopher managed to relax a bit. He meant to phone Haven, or Sean as he was called in real life, to tell him that he wouldn’t be coming to the barbeque tonight. Sean was also a sys admin and his help could be useful. His mobile phone had been reset, for a moment he considered activating it but dropped that idea as he realized he didn’t have Sean’s number in his head. Since he got his first cell phone he had stopped remembering numbers.

What is going on?, he thought. The victorious feeling from bringing back the server had faded when he saw his cell phone and was utterly crushed when he heard a scream in the office.

Christopher hardly ever saw Michel Bordeleau, the CEO of Meriabeck, but today when he walked into the server room the executive looked like a ghost.

“We have some serious trouble.” Michel said.
“I know,” Christopher started, “I’m working on getting everything back up.”
“Don’t touch anything, it will be needed as evidence.”
“Sir?” the sys admin said uneasily.
“What we need now is access to the Internet and a phone.”
“But the firewall is toast.”
“I don’t care. I just have to get online with my laptop. Ms. Delgado will also need to be connected.”
“We have an old D-link router I think we could connect.”
“Great,” Michel gave his cell phone to Christopher, “and can you fix this, I need to make a call.”
“Sure, but you won’t have access to your contacts.”
“That’s not a problem. I have them cached in Outlook. Remember, don’t touch anything.”

After setting Michel and Kathy up with an Internet access, Christopher opened Outlook on his workstation and grabbed Sean’s number.

Sean was all excited when he called, and congratulated Christopher and the people at Meriabeck. At first Christopher hadn’t a clue of what his friend was talking about. After a few minutes Christopher realized why his CEO had looked like a ghost.

Aftermath

The following Monday there were some talk about the stock holders suing the executive officers at Meriabeck for failing to protect the company’s network and good name.

During a press conference on Monday afternoon Kathy Delgado explained to the public what had happened and that Meriabeck would do all that it could to help the authorities to catch the responsible hacker.

A week after the event the stocks had stabilized at 5% under what it was sold for the previous week.

After that week Christopher felt like he had never needed a vacation as bad as he did now.

Please note this is a purely fictional story, any names found here are made up. I’ve written this because I like writing, if someone reads it and enjoy it: great. If they get more conscious about security, that’s a bonus. If you have feedback or comments on the story please share them.

Links of Interest:

Cognitive Hacking and the Value of Information

Emulex Fraud Hurts All

The Art of Deception

Tags: security, stories, fiction

midfr0st had just finished his breakfast. His fridge was empty so he had gone out to a nearby café and was lighting a cigarette as his laptop was booting. Thanks to his digital hotspotter midfr0st had been sure he would have wireless access at the café, he chose a wep “protected” wlan to connect through. The wep key lasted 226 seconds.

The stock market had just opened. midfr0st stretched his legs and cracked his knuckles. He began by changing the passwords for Meriabeck’s CMS system, unless they knew about the sql injection they wouldn’t be able to edit their website. They could probably still access it through ftp if they could locate their account details, the other option they had was phoning the web hotel and have them shut down the site. midfr0st’s gut told him that even if they had their ftp credentials they would be unable to change the site without access to the CMS system.

midfr0st: Are you ready?
c@rri3r: sure man!
midfr0st: excellent, take it down
c@rri3r: now?
midfr0st: now

midfr0st wiped all the mobile phones he could see in the Mobile Administration Web Tool, for at least a few hours Meriabeck would have trouble receiving any telephone calls.

Looks great, midfr0st thought as he saw his piece on Meriabecks website. He sent out a press release from Kathy R. Delgado, the PR woman at Meriabeck. midfr0st considered sending out an informative email to all the employees to add to the confusion, but decided it would be better if the company didn’t know what was happening. Before he left Meriabeck to its fate he shut down the network and killed the firewall.

“What’s so funny?” the waitress asked with a smile on her face. midfr0st just looked at her, not sure what to do, he held up his empty cup.
“Not enough coffee, I get all strange and giggly if I’m below my quota.”
She laughed and poured him another cup, when she went away she smiled almost sadly at him.

After finishing his coffee midfr0st walked home. Having some time to kill he logged into bloglines to read up on his feeds. Just after reading a few entries his phone began to buzz.

Text message received: “Meriabeck Stock Rising”

midfr0st logged into his bank and sold all the stocks he had at a 18% gain, he heard later that tr0y had sold the stocks he bought at a 24% profit.

A few hours later the stock exchange closed the trading for Meriabeck when they had dropped 45% for the day.

What comes up must go down, midfr0st thought, inhaling smoke from his newly lit cigarette.

Tags: security, stories, fiction