Zero Day_ A Novel - Mark Russinovich [60]
Since the CISU occupied the entire top floor of the Lee Building, someone could stand at one end and view every workstation and every member of the staff in a single glance. Daryl had seen the arrangement in a Tokyo office and grasped its improvement over individual offices and cubicles. She’d installed the new arrangement the first week after her promotion.
“Team leader meeting in five minutes!” she shouted as she stepped off the elevator. In the break room she filled her cup with coffee, grabbed a cinnamon bun for breakfast, then went directly to the glass-enclosed conference room. Setting her laptop down, she plugged it in and booted as she ate her breakfast.
Two team leaders entered over the next two minutes, each carrying a laptop and sheets of paper. Neither looked as if he or she had slept in the last three days. The third and final one to enter closed the door as Daryl began.
“Mercy Hospital in Brooklyn has four deaths so far, perhaps more to follow. From what research I’ve been able to do, there have been other hospital deaths. There are many incidents out there that just may be a result of the virus we’re chasing. A British Airways flight all but crashed over the Atlantic, some passengers were killed. It’s being blamed on a virus in the plane’s computer. Now I don’t want to sound like one of those TV shows, but I need answers. If this virus is the cause of all this, and potentially more, there will be panic. We can’t afford that. The panic could end up killing more than the virus itself. We don’t have time for idle talk. What have you got?”
The question was directed to Oscar Lee. Average height, lean with bright dark eyes, he jokingly claimed the building was owned by his father. From Berkeley, he’d followed the same employment path as Daryl and was recognized for his overarching grasp of viruses and his ability to coax outside agencies to help. She’d made him responsible for coordinating the effort with CSIA, since he already headed the team that liaisoned with them.
“The vendors aren’t on board yet, but I’ve convinced a few people here and there to give this some time,” he said, sounding weary and nervous. “So far we’ve got three rootkits identified. The first appears to have been released back in June. They conceal at least twenty-seven viruses, with different functions. We haven’t determined what all of them are as of yet.
“Many of the variants are either missing an exploit code or have one that we haven’t been able to identify. Those that do are mostly trying to use a variety of old exploits that work only against unpatched systems. The vendors report a surge in numbers of old viruses. We do have three that are exploiting a single zero-day vulnerability in Microsoft operating systems.” Zero day was a term used to identify software bugs for which no fix exists, that aren’t widely known, and that malware authors use to spread their viruses.
“Jeez,” Michelle Gritter muttered quietly. At twenty-three, she was the youngest of the management team, and the only woman. Pudgy, though not unattractive, she was a chronic nail-biter. She moved her left hand to her lips.
“Anything else?” Daryl asked.
Oscar shook his head. “Isn’t that enough?”
“Michelle?”
The young woman lowered her hand before speaking. “We’re attempting to establish the scope of the contamination. As of a few minutes ago we have 964 referrals of malware containing the word Superphreak from end users. We’re working on it and have managed to determine these referrals are primarily generated by six versions of the virus.”
“I don’t like the sound of that,” Oscar said, shaking his head. “How many are out there hidden by a rootkit nobody’s detected”
Daryl said, “It’s our job to find