Abuse of Power - Michael Savage [56]
Jack and Tony surveyed the room for a place to sit, but the old, deflated bean bag chairs didn’t look particularly inviting so they both opted to stand.
After closing the door behind them, Karras got straight to the point. “Max says you’ve got a job offer.”
“That’s right,” Jack said.
“My services start at two grand, cash only, and I don’t do banks, military defense, or intelligence agencies. Too much of a risk. That work for you?”
The fee was less than what Jack had been expecting, but Karras obviously wasn’t a greedy man. According to Max, he had the ability to make himself a millionaire at the stroke of a key but he avoided temptation. Why he chose to live like this was anyone’s guess.
“I think that works,” Jack said. “Although scrounging up cash at this time of night could be difficult.”
Karras shrugged. “Don’t worry about it. You’re a friend of Maxie’s, I’ll trust you. I’ll even give you a discount, you get her to deliver it to me.”
No chance in hell that would ever happen, but Jack smiled and nodded. “I’m sure she’ll be happy to.”
The prospect seemed to make Karras’s day.
“Good,” he said, crossing to the chair at his computer station. He sank into it and stabbed a key, making the porn site go away. “So what’s our target?”
“I need to look at some personnel records.”
“Corporate?”
Jack shook his head. “Government.”
“Hmm,” Karras said. “That gets tricky. Foreign or domestic?”
“The local British Consulate.”
Karras’s eyebrows went up and for a moment Jack thought he was about to refuse. But he had only been thinking, apparently, for an instant later he shrugged it off. “Easy as making white rice.”
Jack was surprised. “How do you know? You been in there before?”
“I’ve made a few exploratory trips.”
“Why?”
Karras shrugged. “Why not? I like challenges, so I go looking for them.”
Jack regarded him critically. “But why the British Consulate?”
“The U.K.’s Terrorism Act of 2000 made hacking an act of terrorism,” he said. “I keep checking to make sure I’m not on any of their watch lists.”
“By committing the very act that would put you on the list,” Jack said.
“Yeah. How else?”
Jack held up his hands. “Beats me. I’m already on that list, so I’m not one to judge. You were saying, about challenges?”
“Right. The BC’s firewalls are state-of-the-art, but the biggest vulnerability of any organization is people and training. No matter how many times you pound it into an employee’s head to create strong passwords and keep them secure, there’s always some fool who doesn’t listen. It’s an IT manager’s nightmare.”
“Which you use to your advantage.”
“Little social engineering and I’m in. And once I’m in, that sucker is mine.” He jabbed a key with his index finger and the screen on his right came to life with a list of files. “I think I have a password that’s current.”
Tony, who had been looking disappointed ever since the porn site was banished from view, said, “You keep this stuff on file? What if you get raided?”
“Kill switch,” Karras told him as he scrolled through the files. “I can fry every single one of my hard drives in about thirty seconds flat. You’d need a forensics miracle worker to figure out what was on them.” He found what he was looking for and opened the file. “Here it is. Hermione10.”
“Hermione?”
“Yeah, daughter. Women tend to use their kids’ names, pet’s name, or mother’s name for their password, in that order. God bless Facebook, it’s like a big, fat password directory.”
“Pretty scary when you think about it,” Jack said.
“Best not to,” Tony suggested.
Karras typed something and a network portal blossomed on his center screen showing the British embassy logo. The lion and the unicorn.
Navigating to the local consulate’s page, he called up the log-in box, typed in the name, Winterbottom, Jane, the password, Hermoine10, then punched the enter button