Zero Day_ A Novel - Mark Russinovich [69]
Borz returned to London, where he resumed his formal education. At the same time, his mother directed that he anglicize his name. Now in his thirties; he knew no one who was aware of his past. For all appearances and purposes, he was Brian Manfield, the perfect English gentleman. If people noticed that he never ate pork sausage, or if they believed they’d seen someone looking like him emerging from a mosque, they thought nothing more of it.
At three that afternoon Manfield called Caro. “Are you up yet?”
“Of course, silly. Been up for hours. I want to see you.”
Manfield chuckled. “Soon enough. How about a drink at six, then some dinner?”
“I know what I want to eat, and it’s not dinner.”
“Save it for dessert. I will.”
WEEK THREE
INCREASE IN CYBERCRIME DRAMATIC
By Ursula White
Global Computer News Service
August 24
LAS VEGAS—In a speech to computer software providers, Michael Elliot, president of Internet Security Alliance, said that cybercrime is the greatest threat to American prosperity since the depression of the 1930s. “Effective software to stop it in its tracks is vital for any company,” he said, adding, “Sadly, even companies that believe they are protected are running computer systems wide-open to incursions.”
Speaking to a gathering estimated at 4,000, Elliot related several stories of looting by cybercriminals, one in excess of $1 million. Malware specially crafted to obtain financial information from home and company computers is on the increase and “is more effective all the time.” One Fortune 500 company had many of its financial records encrypted and was required to pay a ransom of $100,000 for the key to restore the files.
Today’s cybercriminals have abandoned widespread attack against corporate firewalls for the specific targeting of individual computers which will likely hold sensitive financial information. “The sky’s the limit when it comes to cyberfraud,” he said in conclusion. “We live in a cyber world at our own peril.”
Global Computer News Service, Inc. All rights reserved.
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MOSCOW, RUSSIAN FEDERATION
TVERSKOE ADMINISTRATIVE DISTRICT
FRIDAY, AUGUST 25
4:06 P.M.
Ivana Koskov listened intently to her earphones, then said into the microphone, “The port terminals must have a significantly increased capacity on the Pacific Coast in order for us to…”
Listening to her steady voice was Boris Velichkovsky, the managing director for resource development and logistics for Yukos Oil and Gas Company, the largest oil company in Russia. He’d once served as deputy Soviet ambassador to the United Nations and preferred this method of translation in business meetings, where the various translators sat in another room, separated by a one-way mirror. One was assigned to each foreign speaker in attendance and was responsible for both translating from Russian into the foreign language, and from the foreign language back into Russian.
Ivana was highly proficient in English and Italian and was working hard on her French. Next would be Spanish, of which she had only a rudimentary understanding. She’d been hired for this job shortly after the former Yukos CEO, Mikhail Khodorkovsky, had been sentenced to nine years in prison for tax evasion. It was widely understood that his true crime had been to build the enormously wealthy Yukos from the corpse of the old Soviet Union, then fail to cut in the Russian president and his minions. Now he was paying the price.
Ivana had never met Khodorkovsky. Few in the company ever spoke of him. It was as if he’d never existed. But that was Russia, she’d told her husband. Czars, Party chairmen, presidents, it was all the same. The powerful all seemed to vanish in the night, to disappear as totally as if they’d never existed at all. Ivana’s mother had told her of working in the old Ministry