Social Engineer (2 page)

“Do you recognise this?” Brody asked the group.

Hall frowned. Wilson shrugged. Jacobsen spoke for them, “Just because we work here doesn’t make us all chemists.”

Moorcroft, who had known what was coming from reading Brody’s report, maintained his severe gaze on his colleagues and answered Brody’s question. “It’s the formula for our new Alzheimer’s prevention drug. The one that is still in development, two years away from beginning clinical trials. The one on which the future financial success of HTL is riding. Let me put it this way.” Moorcroft leaned forward towards his three colleagues, fists clenched, enunciating each word precisely. “If this formula got into the hands of our competitors, especially an unscrupulous Chinese firm, HTL’s future would be
wiped out overnight
.” He paused, his eyes not leaving those of his three colleagues, and then asked, “Where did you get hold of this, Mr Tay— I mean, Brody?”

“I broke into your IT systems and stole it from you, Dr Moorcroft,” said Brody, matter-of-factly.

“That’s impossible!” barked Hall, sitting bolt upright in his chair.

“Impossible?” Brody frowned theatrically. “No, not impossible. I’d categorise it as . . . quite difficult.”

Hall countered, “But I’ve installed the most expensive, most sophisticated perimeter defences in the world! They’ve withstood hundreds of hacking attacks from all over the planet. Anyway, the new product development system this formula is located on is on a network physically ring-fenced from the main corporate network. It really is impossible to get to from the outside.”

“Yes, I agree,” conceded Brody, “Your firewalls are hardened well. Very few ports are open to the Internet. No obvious vulnerabilities. It passed a standard pentest.”

Hall sat back in his chair, seemingly relieved.

“It’s your employees that are the problem,” Brody continued.

“Are you saying that one of our employees gave you this formula?” It was Wilson. She had removed her glasses. Without them she looked softer, more approachable.

“Yeah, give me his name,” said Jacobsen, “I’ll have him dealt with.”

“No one employee gave it to me,” said Brody. “And you’re right, Mr Hall, the new product development system is on a separate network only accessible from within this building. Once I figured that out, I simply walked into the secure area, logged into the system, copied it and emailed it to myself.”

“That’s impossible!” It was Jacobsen, repeating Hall’s earlier denial.

“I thought we were done with that,” smiled Brody, coolly. “Have you heard of social engineering?”

Silence.

“I’ll take that as a no, then. Let me show you.”

Brody pressed a key on his laptop. His chemical formula gave way to a slide containing a video he had recorded last week when he had visited HTL’s campus the first time. The video began playing, audio emitting from the ceiling speakers. Brody narrated, “This footage was taken last Wednesday. I’m driving a white van towards this building. There’s a high-definition pinhole video camera inside the cap I’m wearing. It has a Bluetooth connection to a receiver in my bag which records everything I see.”

The video footage panned towards the rear-view mirror and Brody’s reflection was plainly visible. Under a dark grey cap displaying the trusted logo of Cisco, the world’s largest networking equipment manufacturer, his thick head of blond hair and neatly trimmed beard could clearly be seen. From the mirror, Brody grinned and winked cheekily for the camera. Although the onscreen reflection displayed utter confidence, Brody easily recalled the butterflies that had hurled themselves around his stomach at the time.

The image returned to the road, skirting the electric fences surrounding the HTL campus. The camera moved about as Brody’s head turned to take in the view. Acres of grass lay beyond the fences. In the distance stood the three-story glass enclosed building they were sitting in right now. Onscreen, two of the wings were visible but there were four in total, each protruding from a central hub in the directions of the compass. The building’s shape was a play on the green and black plus sign used in HTL’s corporate logo, which Brody knew was originally designed to allude to the Red Cross logo, a meretricious way of engendering brand empathy for the global pharmaceutical corporation.

Approaching the security guardhouse, the screen showed twenty or so weary protestors camped outside, sipping steaming beverages from flasks. Their billboards declared that they were angry with HTL for animal rights violations.

“Idiots,” Jacobsen commented. “Every day they’re there. They drive me nuts.”

“In that case,” said Brody, “you’ll enjoy the next bit.”

In the security hut beyond, a guard looked up from his newspaper, observing the van’s approach. The hut had two barriers that raised one at a time, trapping visiting vehicles between them to confirm they had appropriate clearance to gain access. The security guard nodded acknowledgement at the approaching Brody.

The van slowed. The clicking noise of the van’s direction indicator could be heard. As one, the activists became animated and began shouting. The high-resolution video footage clearly showed two of the hand-painted signs: “Animals have rights” and “HTL kills primates!” A group of protestors ran for the junction’s corner in an attempt to block or slow Brody’s access.

Instead of slowing, Brody briefly accelerated and their faces gawped in horror at his unanticipated move. Quickly, they dived out of the way — one, dressed in a pig costume, falling on the grass verge. As if synchronised, the security barrier rotated upwards, allowing the van through. The rear-view mirror filled the image onscreen, showing the barrier descend. Behind it protestors shook fists above their heads.

“Nice move,” said two voices in unison. One was Jacobsen and the other one was from the laptop. It was the security guard, whose grinning face now filled the screen. The guard continued, “Shame you didn’t hit one of them.”

Brody’s voice, “Next time, I’ll take the corner faster.”

Eight Weeks Ago

“An animal rights protestor?” Leroy scoffed. “Are you serious?”

Brody considered his best friend’s question, ignoring his laughter.

“What’s not to like? Look at her. She’s gorgeous!” Brody pointed at his computer screen. The dating site profile for Mel Beaufils filled the screen; her photo front and centre. She had wavy blonde hair and large twinkling green eyes set off by raised eyebrows and an effortless smile, suggesting she had a secret to share. Brody had been intrigued from the moment he’d first viewed her picture, just over a week ago. Through the site, he’d contacted her immediately and, after some emails back and forth, he was now just an hour away from their first date.

“She’s not bad,” commented Leroy, tilting his head to one side. “A bit too womanly for me.”

“That’s because this is a straight dating site, you fool. Anyway, you’ve got Danny.”

Leroy and Danny had been an item for many years.

“So, who are you going to be tonight? Brody the cinematographer? Brody the stuntman? Brody the circus clown? Obviously not Brody the computer hacker.”

“I’m not sure what I registered as on this site. Hold on a sec, let’s check my story.” Brody clicked on a link that brought up his own profile. “Ah, now I remember. Tonight Leroy, I’m Brody the location scout.”

“Not bad. Easy enough to blag, especially with the amount of movies you watch. Plus you can justify being out of the country for months on end.”

“And if you look at my profile, being out of the country so much is the reason I claim to be using a dating site. Just looking for some intelligent company for those rare occasions I’m back in the UK.”

“So why is this Mel on the dating site?”

“She says she wants to find an escape from the drudgery of her normal life. She’s a nurse in an elderly care home. And on top of that she does loads of charity work as well as being an animal rights campaigner.”

“And so she’s chosen you? A boring white man. Not very exotic.”

“What?  So I presume your answer to drudgery is to fuck a black guy.”

“Once you’ve gone black, you never go back,” trilled Leroy, momentarily putting on his coyest, campest voice and fluttering his eyelashes. Then regular Leroy returned. “Take Danny. He can’t get enough of me, even after four years.”

Brody shook his head and raised his eyes upwards as if seeking divine intervention.

“Where are you taking her? Bromptons?”

“Of course.”

Today, 9:10am

Brody’s voice came from the speakers in the HTL boardroom. “I’m on a call-out for . . . hold on a second . . .” The image showed Brody’s hands retrieve a clipboard from the passenger seat. It contained one piece of paper with a name written on it. “ . . . Mandy Jones in IT.”

The guard in the security gatehouse confirmed the details matched those on his computer screen. “Are you Charles West from Cisco?”

“Charlie, yes,” said Brody. “Only my mum calls me Charles.”

“Yeah, well my mum calls me selfish and ungrateful, but that’s another story.”

Brody laughed obligingly.

“Okay,
Charlie
West. You’re on the list. Please head for the visitor’s car park. I’ll let reception know you’re on your way.”

“How the hell did you get on that list?” demanded Jacobsen.

Brody paused the video.

“I phoned up your IT help desk and asked them what the process was to get someone registered as a visitor. They simply assumed I was an employee and told me about the guest registration web page on your intranet.” He paused briefly, sizing up the opposition. “You know, that’s the thing about help desk staff. They just want to
help
.”

Wilson made some notes. Hall asked, “You said earlier that you couldn’t break through our firewalls. So how did you gain access to the intranet? It’s only accessible by authorised employees from inside our network.”

“I didn’t need to. With that knowledge, I then phoned your reception, pretending to be Mandy in IT. I have the audio recording here by the way, but I’d rather not play it now. My high-pitched impression of Mandy is rather embarrassing!” Brody smiled innocently. “Anyway, as Mandy, I told her I’d already left for the day but had just remembered that I had a Cisco engineer arriving the following morning. And the receptionist — I think her name is Yvonne — kindly offered to fill in the guest registration for me.”

“So this is social engineering then?” asked Wilson. “Conning people into doing things for you?”

“In a way, yes. I manipulate people into performing actions or divulging confidential information, which gives me the access I need. It’s a method your Chinese competitors could easily employ. Or even those animal activists outside — if they put their mind to it. There are measures you can put in place to prevent this, which we’ll walk through later.”

Eight Weeks Ago

“What is this?” asked Mel suspiciously, as she looked up and down the deserted backstreet, seeing only a long expanse of redbrick wall. Only the large wooden door they stood in front of broke up the monotony of brickwork. There were no windows. In fact, there was nothing to indicate what the outer walls contained.

Brody already loved her French accent;
this
pronounced as
zees
. Her voice was sweet and she radiated continental charm; a natural innocence that he’d never experienced before, especially from anyone he’d met through the dating site.

“It’s a surprise,” he said.

He rapped on the door and stood back. Mel wrapped her arms around herself, unsure of her situation. And of him.

It was all going to plan.

The door swung inwards, revealing a huge man in a suit, shirt and tie, all in black. An electronic earpiece was wrapped around one ear. 

“Welcome to Bromptons,” said the bouncer.

“Evening, Gerry,” said Brody, stepping over the threshold.

Brody looked back and saw that Mel remained outside. He reached out a hand and smiled. After a moment’s hesitation, she took it and allowed herself to be gently drawn inside. She had small soft hands.

Once Gerry closed the door to the street, he opened an internal door. Immediately, the hustle and bustle of a busy bar could be heard; a tenor saxophone playing mellow jazz in the background. They walked through and were greeted by a waitress, who checked Brody’s reservation and asked them to follow her. As they walked through the dimly lit bar, past booths and seating areas separated from each other by black net curtains draped from the ceiling high above, Mel took it all in with an expression of childlike wonderment on her face.

“This is amazing,” she said, once they were seated opposite each other in their own private booth. “How do you know it is even ’ere?”

“This place is called Bromptons. It’s a speakeasy: a concept originally invented by the Americans during the prohibition era, when they had to hide their bars and alcohol drinking from the authorities. You had to be in the know to find it — usually a back door in a back street, with all the windows at the front blacked out completely to hide what was going on inside.”

“Why is it ’ere, now? And in London?”

“Just a fad, I suppose. But it is cool.”

Mel agreed.

As Brody had hoped, the idiosyncrasy of Bromptons had worked its magic, allowing them to fall into conversation naturally, suppressing any of the stiltedness that he otherwise found occurred on first dates. A waitress took their drinks order, and they continued chatting.

Initially, Brody steered the conversation around Mel. She answered his questions openly, neither feigning her responses, nor dressing them up. She described her job as a nurse with passion. She truly cared about the well being of her patients. She offered up amusing anecdotes of randy old hospitalised men. She talked about helping the homeless, attending soup kitchens on her days off. She volunteered in a charity shop near where she lived in Chalk Farm.

He marvelled at her. Mel was unlike anyone he’d ever met before. To give that much of oneself to strangers without a private agenda was something so far removed from Brody’s psyche that he found himself mesmerised. But the reward seemed to be her zany lust for life. She laughed easily and took pleasure in the simplest of things.