Social Engineer (8 page)

Anna forced a smile onto her face. “Okay then. I’ll do my best.”

He nodded. “Whenever you’re ready, Anna.”

She took two more deep breaths, drew back the bow and launched into the concerto, her favourite piece. The music, as Elgar had planned, came slowly and hauntingly at first. Within a few bars she was lost to the stately rhythm of her part. Webber disappeared from her thoughts, even though she could see him immediately opposite her. It was as if someone else was observing him through her eyes, so lost was she in the music.

Webber began to wave his arms as if conducting her. Although his timing was slightly out, he became quite animated, his eyes closing in rapture.
 

Anna, too, closed her eyes and within a few bars, had completely surrendered herself to the magnificent piece. She felt as though she was achieving a level of grace that she knew was denied her in any other aspect of her life. The bow in her right hand elegantly flew left and right over the strings. Her left hand moved up and down the fingerboard, rapidly depressing the strings, the positions fluent and clear, each note perfect.
 

She reached the final crescendo with a flourish. She knew that she had never played better and that Tuesday would see her in Covent Garden. A bead of sweat trickled down her back. She opened her eyes, smiling expectantly.
 

Webber was nowhere to be seen.
 

She swivelled on the chair, scanning the room in panic. He was right behind her, one arm raised high, holding what looked like a large dagger, a maniacal grin spread across his face.

Uncomprehending, she asked, “What are you . . .”

Webber rapidly swung his arm downwards, twisting his wrist at the last second to cause the solid base of the dagger’s handle to strike Anna cruelly across the side of her face. Her head exploded in pain, whiteness obscuring her vision. She dropped to the floor. Her cello and bow fell from her hands, clattering on top of her, numbed notes emitting from the instrument’s strings as it fell to the floor beside her. Alongside the pain Anna instantly became nauseous, as if she’d downed too much tequila too quickly. Tears streamed from her eyes, mingling with the blood oozing from a gash on her cheek. She covered her head with her hands and crunched into a foetal position.
 

The image of Dorothy from
The Wizard of Oz
, her favourite movie as a child, flickered into her mind. She saw Dorothy holding back the curtain, exposing the charlatan behind the illusion, and accusing him of being
a very bad man
.
 

Anna forced her heavy lids to open. Her own version of a
very bad man
was leaning down towards her, the point of his gleaming dagger held out in front of him, the illusion he had held her in for three days now completely shattered. She glimpsed past the sharp point and into Webber’s eyes — black, lustful and full of malicious intent — and saw her death in them.

Fathoming that she had just given her final performance, yet oddly grateful to have played so perfectly, Anna felt her eyelids droop again as she allowed herself to drift towards welcome blackness.

“I’m here for a 9:00 a.m. interview with Richard Wilkie. My name is Brody Taylor.”

The pudgy receptionist pushed her glasses further up the bridge of her nose and checked her computer screen. She squinted in confusion.

“We don’t have a Mr Wilkie based in this office.”

“Yes, sorry. It’s a video interview. He’s calling in from Dubai.”

“Ah, I see. Yes, here you are. The ground floor video conferencing suite is booked for you, Mr Taylor.”

The receptionist printed off a security pass, pressed a button to open the gate, allowed him to pass through and escorted him to a meeting room labelled ‘VC1’. She pushed open the door and allowed him to enter.

Impressive. She was efficient and security conscious. It made a pleasant change.

“When Mr Wilkie dials in, it should answer automatically. Is there anything I can get you? Tea, coffee perhaps?”

“I’m fine, thanks.” Brody gave his best sheepish smile. “Maybe you could just wish me luck?”

She smiled obligingly. “Good luck, Mr Taylor.” She shut the door behind her.

Brody quickly surveyed the room. An oval board table took up the length of the room, but looked like it had been cut in half lengthways, with six black leather seats on the curved side facing onto a massive elongated video screen, actually made up of three widescreen monitors placed side-by-side. Above the centre screen was a unit housing three cameras angled to capture two seats each. Brody knew from experience that when the Cisco TelePresence system activated, the screens would display a similarly furnished room located somewhere else in the world, giving both parties the optical illusion of one complete boardroom.

Brody dropped his leather laptop case on the table and rummaged around inside. He removed his tablet computer and placed it in front of him, flipping it open to reveal its detachable keyboard. He then pulled out a roll of silver duct tape and peeled off three strips, sticking them over the cameras. Grinning to himself at the irony of employing such a low-tech solution, he pushed a panel set into the board table and revealed the touchscreen tablet that controlled the TelePresence system. Deftly he muted the microphones in the room he was in and then searched through the address book. Twenty other Atlas Brands Inc. video conferencing suites were listed by city name. Brody chose Dubai and pressed the green button.
 

The screens jumped to life. Suddenly, an image of six other people sat opposite him, chit-chatting with each other. The older man in the centre noticed that someone had dialled in. His brows furrowed. “Who’s that dialling in from Birmingham? Is there something wrong with your video system? It’s just a black screen here.”

Brody used the touchscreen control panel to send a text message to their system in Dubai.
Yes, it’s Rich Wilkie here. I can see and hear you guys fine. Must be a glitch. Don’t worry, I’ll message you like this if I’ve got anything to say.

Brody watched the older man read his message displayed on their screen three thousand miles away.
 

“Okay Rich. No problem. How’s the weather in the UK?”

Brody typed out his answer.
It’s raining, Andrew. It’s April. Would you expect anything else?

Andrew Lamont, Chief Executive Officer of Atlas Brands Inc., laughed. The woman on his left said, “Look, here’s Chu in Sydney.”

At that moment, the image in Brody’s room shrunk to just the middle monitor, destroying the illusion of them all being in the same room. The right hand monitor suddenly displayed another room, with just one inhabitant. It was labelled Sydney. A few moments later, the remaining left-hand screen was taken up by Munich, with three people.
 

Spread across the globe, the board of directors of the world’s fourth largest restaurant chain and hospitality company greeted each other amiably.
 

“Okay, it looks as though we’re all here,” said Lamont. “Let’s get this meeting started. For you folks in Sydney and Munich wondering about the black screen, that’s Rich Wilkie in Birmingham. Seems to be a problem with the system there, but he can hear us all fine. Right, let’s get down to business. Ulf, can you take us through the agenda?”

Ulf Lubber, the middle of the three people in the Munich office, walked everyone through the agenda. The item Brody was here for was fourth on the agenda, at least an hour away. He zoned out of the meeting and connected his tablet computer to the Internet via its built-in 4G SIM card. He might as well use the time productively.
 

Brody worked his way through his emails, spread across numerous accounts, most of which were newsletters and blog posts from the various technology and computer hacking websites he subscribed to anonymously.
 

While he worked, he kept one eye and one ear on the meeting. Heather Bell, Atlas Brand’s Chief Financial Officer, presented the prior month’s financial performance of each of their major restaurant chains, all famous brands in their local regions. Walter Chan, who managed the property portfolio, took them through expansion plans by country. Heng Chu, the Chief Information Officer sitting on his own in the Sydney office, struggled his way through his plans to integrate the IT systems of four recent restaurant chain acquisitions Atlas had made in Asia, frequently interrupted when it became clear the synergy savings the board had promised the shareholders would take much longer to realise.
 

“What’s next, Ulf?” asked Lamont.
 

“We’ve got Marketing and the launch plans for a brand new concept.” Ulf turned to the man on his right in Munich. “Over to you Tim.”

Brody looked up from his computer and focused on the meeting. Adrenalin began to pump through his bloodstream.
 

Tim Welland, Chief Marketing Officer, began his presentation. He had connected his laptop to the TelePresence system and its screen took over the central monitor, forcing the images of the other meeting rooms to tile next to each other, now even smaller. Welland took them through a polished PowerPoint presentation, illustrated by concept artwork.
 

“Welcome to Barbecue Union, a brand new mid-range dining concept for the UK, Canada and Germany. Every table in our Barbecue Union outlets will have a live barbecue grille embedded within it, which customers will use to cook their own food. The food will be presented on skewers along with a selection of marinades. It will be a mix of Mediterranean, Indian, Oriental, and American cuisine. Imagine, if you will, all the fun of having your food cooked in front of you, just like the Japanese Teppanyaki restaurants, but without the expensively trained chefs. Yes, you guessed it, our customers will be those chefs.”

Welland paused and surveyed his colleagues on the screens. Lots of nodding heads.
 

He continued his presentation, dropping into lower levels of detail, eventually hitting target market demographics, pricing strategies, menus, and launch costs. “And the best bit is that much of the marketing will be word-of-mouth; the best kind. As customers experience this totally new concept, they will mention it to everyone they know.”

With a touch of triumph, Welland concluded his presentation and began taking questions. While they debated the pros and cons of this new chain, Brody pressed a button on the control tablet and the image of his room was added to the others. Just a black screen. He stood up and peeled the duct tape from the webcams in his room, revealing his face in close up on the screen, his swept back white blond hair, green eyes and carefully groomed beard filling the screen. He sat back down, his every move mirrored on the screen, and unmuting his microphone, waited for someone to notice.

“What about hygiene? Surely we’d be liable to local food safety regulations if the customers don’t cook the ingredients properly?” asked Annabel Fielding, their Head of Legal, located in the Dubai office.

Just as Welland began to answer, Ulf Lubber in Germany exclaimed, “Who’s that?” He pointed at his screen, the others following his direction.

Brody waved and said, “Hi.”

On his tablet, Brody absent-mindedly noticed a new email arrive. He automatically clicked it open.

“Who the hell are you, young man?” demanded Andrew Lamont. “And where’s Rich Wilkie?”

“Me?” said Brody innocently, forcing himself to ignore the email. It could wait.

“I know who it is,” said Chu in Sydney. “He’s a ‘white hat’ security consultant called Brody Taylor. I recently contracted him to carry out a pentest. But what he’s doing there I’ve no idea!”

“What the hell is a pentest?” asked the CEO.

Brody stepped in. “A penetration test is a simulated attack on your organisation’s security defences to identify weaknesses. It’s done through computer hacking or social engineering or, as I’ve done, with a combination of both.”

“Social engineering?” prompted Lamont.

“The art of manipulating people into performing actions or divulging confidential information to give me the access I need. And, as you can clearly see, I’ve successfully broken through your security defences and have been sitting in on your board meeting for the last hour. But fortunately for you, the last part of a pentest is to report back the findings. And that’s what I’m here to do.”

Lamont turned on the CIO. “Did you agree to this, Chu?”

In Sydney, Chu visibly squirmed in his chair. “No. Mr Taylor was supposed to meet with me next week to present his findings. From there, I would block any holes he found and make sure we’re completely secure from a real cyber attack.”

Lamont turned back to Brody. “Okay, Mr Taylor, you’ve proved your point. Thank you for what you’ve done. Why don’t you leave us to our board meeting and report back to Chu as planned.”

“Hold on a second,” said Fielding. “Did you get him to sign a confidentiality agreement, Chu? He’s just heard all about our recent performance and future plans!”

“Yes, of course I did,” said Chu.

Brody nodded in agreement. Rising from his seat, he paused halfway and asked. “Before I go, do you mind if I ask you one question, Mr Chu?”

Lamont splayed his hands in exasperation and shook his head in disbelief.

“Why did you hire me for a pentest right now?”

“What do you mean?” asked Chu.

“Why now? Why not a year ago? Or in three months from now?”

“It’s part of our security improvement programme. We do this kind of thing all the time in IT.”

“From the vulnerabilities I’ve exposed, I very much doubt that, Mr Chu.” Brody looked at Lamont. “Mr Lamont, why don’t you ask Mr Chu the same question? Maybe you’ll get a straight answer.”

Lamont’s intent expression showed that he knew there was more going on here than was immediately apparent. “Chu?”

Chu shrugged. “I was talking with Welland about the plans for launching the new restaurant concept. He was worried that one of our competitors might break in and steal our ideas. As I’ve explained previously, IT doesn’t have anywhere near the budget necessary to put in place a comprehensive threat protection programme. So Welland offered to pay for a pentest to at least determine how exposed we are. Who am I to turn down a gift horse like that?”