Hacking the Naked Princess

by Andy Kaiser

Chapter 0x15

The magic of money had just given me a new friend named Terry.

Terry made a good living being homeless in the broken industrial park of West Rapids.  He had shelter if it got cold, since while many of the buildings were closed and shuttered, they were rotten enough that there were ways to get in.  He had plenty to eat.  Since he had mapped out locations of Dumpsters and trash cans from surviving businesses, his menu was more defined by his mood than availability.  While I was savoring my daily cup of noodles, this guy ate sushi multiple times per week.

Terry also liked to talk.

"I got what I need," he said, extending skinny arms to take in the whole of the crumbling buildings around us.  "Got time to enjoy and I tell you why.  I plan it out, son.  Plans get you success.  You don't plan, then that's a plan for failure.  Like you, now, where you're gonna get success if I help you get inside your RedAction place, because you're planning to give me two hundred fifty bucks."

"Two fifty?  Was that the number?"

"U.S. dollars," he nodded confidently.

"That's your plan."

One trip to an ATM later, I was counting bills into his palm, which was lots of cups of noodles.  I stopped at one fifty.

"Hey now," he said.

"I seem to remember the original deal was less.  You'll get the last hundred after we do this."

"Son," he said, shaking his head sadly.  "You don't understand your position -"

"I do, Terry. You just made a hundred and fifty for bragging how you eat better than I do.  You'll get another hundred for some actual help."

He tilted his head and squinted at me, then grinned and gave a sharp nod.

"This thing," I said, waving the USB stick from P@nic.  "I have to plug this into a computer inside the RedAction building.  It can be any computer, but I need to get inside the place to do it.  Then I'll leave.  Unnoticed."

"Not a problem."

"Well, it's not that easy.  This is a secure place.  They probably have cameras -"

"Yeah, they got ten. On each side, more on the roof.  And doubled up around the front entrance and back loading dock."

I was surprised.  "How do you know that?"

He stared at me with a look that said I was wasting his time which from a courtesy standpoint shouldn't need to be said because even though he was homeless he wasn't going to wait for me to get with the program and the only reason he was still standing there was because I was holding his money.

"You sound like you've done this before."

"Yeah, nah.  But I know people who care about those things."

After coming up with a plan that was admittedly more Terry's idea than mine, a few minutes later saw me confidently walking towards the RedAction building with the eyes of multiple security cameras tracking me.

Except for the security cameras that Terry had proudly pointed out to me, the outside of the large brick building was unremarkable.  Inside was a different story.  A heavy door opened into a clean, spacious hallway.  A receptionist sat on the other side of a wall, looking at me through a small sliding security window.  On my side of the wall, another heavy door stood closed.  A red light glowed on a card reader mounted next to the door.  This was the problem - I needed to get through that door.  P@nic's USB stick was burning a hole in my pocket - I wanted to get in, find a PC, drop off P@nic's present, and get out of there.

I looked around.  I didn't see any company logos, mottos, or anything that said RedAction.  But this was definitely the place.  They even kept their headquarters anonymous.

Breaking her attention away from a paperback book, the receptionist slid open the security window and said, "Welcome to Product Management Group.  Who are you here to see?"

Here we go.

P@nic said she'd hit RedAction hard with a DDoS attack from her botnet, and it would hit right now.  That should be enough to saturate the company bandwidth and bring Internet access offline.

"I'm here about the web problems," I said.  Keep it high-level, keep it simple.  She'd fill in the rest.

"Oh, that's so good!"  Relief in her voice, she rolled her eyes upwards.  "I'm glad they called someone in to help.  They told us it was another Microsoft update that went crazy.  I guess they need help."

While I'm happy to blame Microsoft for everything, from buggy forced OS updates to rainy weather, I tried to understand what the RedAction admins were thinking.  They had to know they were under a DDoS attack.  They couldn't quickly stop it, and this type of attack didn't conceal itself.  Maybe it was better to tell the users something they could understand and not worry about.  They'd gain breathing room to work through the issue without users and bosses who would freak when they heard the word "attack."  In short, lie and downplay the severity.  An oldie but goodie.

"You can go to IT," the receptionist said, and I felt confident until she picked up her phone receiver.  "Let me get security for you."

I needed to get in there alone.  There was no way I could do what I needed with their security watching me the whole time I was here.

"No, don't bother them," I said quickly, and her finger froze over the phone touchscreen as she looked up at me politely.  "I can just head back there myself.  I know where to go."

"Oh, I know," she gave me an apologetic smile.  "But it's policy.  All visitors must be escorted.  I'll get security to take you to them."

I watched helplessly as she hit an extension and spoke quietly into her phone, then turned to me cheerfully.  "On their way now!"

"Thanks."

RedAction's security door buzzed and the red LED turned green.  The door swung open to reveal a mountain of a security goon.  His muscles were armed with a gun, baton, mace and other tactical gear hanging from a Batmanworthy utility belt.  He stood with a military poise.  He examined me up and down and nodded, his eyes flat.  He looked like he didn't like to smile.

"Good afternoon, sir.  You're with IT?"

"Yeah, I just need to get to -"

The main entrance door behind me flew open.  It hit the wall with a slam as Terry burst in and fell onto the floor in his rush.  He climbed back to his feet and reached both arms to the heavens.

"His arrival brings a dark world!"

The security goon refocused his dead stare on my newest cash-motivated friend.

"Whoa there, sir."  Goon stepped past me and went to tower over Terry.  He held both hands up apologetically, trying to crowd Terry back towards the door.  "I'm going to have to ask you to leave, sir.  I can escort you out of this building -"

"Your life is suffering, wretched, infernal!  The Great Old Ones breathe life eternal!"

Terry's face was red, his arms were flailing, and I even saw spittle fly from his lips as he yelled.  Full credit to the man, Terry was good at improv insanity.

The guard was focused on managing this clearly crazy intruder, responding politely while also corralling him back.  I looked behind me.  The receptionist was watching the scuffle with wide eyes, and had slid closed her small access window.

The security door behind me was still open.  I used it.

Terry's distraction should buy me a couple minutes, enough time to introduce P@nic's USB stick to an unoccupied computer.  Terry was ranting louder and was now trying to push back against the guard.  My hope was that RedAction didn't want any attention, so they wouldn't want the police called, like if a guard assaulted someone trying to enter the building.  Even with video evidence in their favor, RedAction had secrets inside of secrets, and any outside investigation would be prevented with all possible effort.  I hoped.

I stood in a hallway that ran straight ahead with periodic doors accessing large cubical farms.  From the multitude gray squares, several curious heads were sticking up above the cube walls like groundhogs in human form.  Listening to the ranting lunatic near the front entrance, they didn't even notice me.  I ducked into the first cubical room and began to scan right and left, looking for unoccupied desks with computers.

I skipped the first couple I found.  One was right near the hallway and too easily seen by anyone going past.  Another had a PC sitting on the desk, and what I needed to do had to be more covert.  A third had a steaming mug of coffee next to the keyboard, so I guessed the owner was close and probably returning soon.

Then in the next cube over, I saw a floor-standing tower PC shoved under the desk.  It was powered on, the monitor patiently displaying a logon screen.  The chair was shoved against the desk and no coat or personal items were visible.

Terry's voice began to fade away.  It sounded like the guard was finally getting him outside.  I had seconds to get this done and get out, before the office went back to normal and I could more easily be caught.

I dropped to the floor and wiggled to the PC, fishing out P@nic's USB stick from my pocket at the same time.  Against the wall in the corner of the cube, I craned my neck around in the gloom to look for open USB ports in the back of the PC.  I cursed quietly when I saw all ports were being used.  Seriously, what did a generic RedAction user need?  Mouse, keyboard, and what else?  Four locally-attached printers?  I picked a cable at random and yanked it out.  I gritted my teeth at the cheery "BONG-bong" from the PC as it noticed I unplugged something, and wanted the world to know.  It did it again as I inserted P@nic's USB stick into the slot I'd just freed up.

I'd done it.  Whatever tool P@nic had me install would hopefully activate, and she could do her magic and properly infiltrate this place and bring them down.  Like right now.  All I needed to do was to get out of here before I was noticed.

"Um, excuse me."

From under the desk, I stared back at a pair of sensible shoes that had just entered the cube along with legs, all of which I assumed belonged to the cube's owner.

I slid out and glanced up at the woman as I did so.  She was staring down at me, fists on her hips.

"What are you doing?" she spoke through a sudden hammering of my heart.

"Just working on the Web issue," I said, trying to keep the problem generic and high-level, pitching my voice like the bored tech I hoped she was used to dealing with.  "An Ethernet thing.  Your DNS cable was loose."

"Oh, okay.  Can I work or not?"

"Yeah, sure.  All set.  Thanks."  I hopped up, smiled briefly, and started back the way I'd come.

I walked down the hallway towards the entrance that was now my exit.  Other employees were navigating the hallway, most carrying fresh refills of coffee, and we all did the head-bob of acknowledgment as I made my way past them.  At the last one, we made eye contact and my stomach dropped.

I'd just nodded to Oober's "mom."  The lady who'd lied about herself and Oober, who first pulled me into this case, and I'd just made direct eye contact with her.  If she recognized me, big problem.  I knew she worked for RedAction.  I didn't think I'd actually see her again.

A couple days' beard growth and a lack of hair combing wasn't much of a disguise.  Still walking, I casually glanced around and behind me to see if my face had triggered anything from her.

She had stopped in the middle of the hallway and looked frozen in place.  She turned slowly to look back at me, her eyes wide.

"Dev Manny!" she screamed.  "That's the investigator!  Security!  Anyone!"

There was a chance she remembered me.  I turned and ran.