Zero Day_ A Novel - Mark Russinovich [40]
The massive ship passed the floating facility with fifty feet to spare, though they cut several oil lines and crushed at least one small tender tied to a moorage.
Shiva could now see the port. “My God,” he muttered. “Sonny, you still can’t get the computer up?”
“No, sir. It just locks, over and over.” Olivera looked up from his screen at the reality beyond the windshield. His face was dripping in sweat. “What’s going to happen?”
Four minutes after rushing by the offshore facility, The Illustrious Goddess roared into Nagasaki harbor, smaller ships scattering in every direction. The enormous ship made the sound of an onrushing locomotive until it struck bottom more than one hundred yards out, but with its mass plus the surge of the engines continuing without respite, the ship plowed ahead as if nothing had happened. Like a mammoth battering ram it streaked across the harbor, then struck land, continuing almost without letup until two-thirds of the ship was out of the water. The sounds of twisted and torn metal were horrifying.
Crossing the port, the massive ship killed six men who’d been too slow to move.
Shiva and his disbelieving crew were knocked to the deck by the force of the impact. A deep moan came from within the ship. The ship’s screw continued to turn and turn, the water behind it boiling into a chocolate-colored froth. Out of water, without the pressure of the ocean, the sides of the ship ruptured, and 4.5 million barrels of oil began surging out.
15
MANHATTAN, NYC
WORLD TRADE CENTER SITE
TUESDAY, AUGUST 15
12:38 P.M.
Jeff’s decision to form his own computer-security company when he left the government had been logical and, for the most part, satisfying. His involvement in the events leading up to 9/11 were known to only a few within the Company, who certainly had reason not to brag about his discoveries. The veil of secrecy over his work at the CIA also prevented him from going public with the details, though he’d come to accept that it would have done no good if he had.
Instead he plunged into the world of cyber-security, where he believed he could do some good. He knew the government was where he belonged, but it was too mired in bureaucracy for him to be effective. Perhaps he could attack the problem from the private sector and make a good living at the same time. From his experience, the level of security for most computers, even those for otherwise quite sophisticated businesses, was paper-thin. Their security programs weren’t updated routinely or even activated, and patches released for vulnerabilities were often not installed.
In the worst-case scenarios, viruses propagated at an alarming rate. SQL Slammer, a virus released in early 2003, doubled every 8.5 seconds and infected 90 percent of vulnerable hosts within ten minutes. It was responsible, directly and indirectly, for shutting down thirteen thousand Bank of America ATMs.
A more recent high-profile example was the Conficker worm. It was originally launched by as-yet-unidentified hackers in late 2008 to serve as a general-purpose platform for malicious activity ranging from spamming to denial of service attacks. By constantly updating to use increasingly more sophisticated update, propagation, and rootkit techniques, it had managed to infect an unknown number of computers with estimates as high as 15 million.
Every year, every few weeks in fact, more and more viruses were unleashed, and increasingly they were searching for ways to steal money. One-third of the U.S. workforce was online, while millions more banked in cyberspace. Internet crime had outgrown illegal drug sales, netting more than $120 billion annually. There’d been nearly two hundred major intrusions into corporate computers, exposing more than 70 million Americans to financial fraud. This included everything