IoT: Yakuza Customer Experience
Minutes pass. Leo speaks up, “I’m posting file names and passwords for their backup files. Anyone identified where these server names are located and found a path?”
Pedro sighs. “Damn this is frustrating. I’m not finding clear lateral paths. This is an SDDC installation and every subnet is logically firewalled and individually encrypted. Ninan! I need you to look for server or rack names or any diagrams on the wall. If you see any of these identifying IDs, jack in a dongle.”
Kiko-Lyn calls out, “There is a map chart of the computer center taped to the system manager’s desk. Ninan, you need the 3rd rack in the 2nd row. It should all be matching SSD data arrays.”
Some physical smash and stab follows. A center operator exclaims, “Into backups, triggered restoration to our virtual port, beginning data exfiltration.”
Leo interjects, “Heads up folks. We just had Remote Administration come on line. They are deploying ICE. I repeat, Intrusion Countermeasures Equipment going active. Watch your six. All the main passwords are being reset. You were right to go for the backups, Pedro. Jorge, this may be the team you were hoping to bait. Blocking backtrack attempts on our network.” A set of displays labeled “Lado Luminoso” light up, showing defense of the remote neural net.
“Cue the second team,” orders Jorge. “Ok table, your mission is now to backtrack these administrators. Get me something we can use to find and go get them later.” A new set of displays, marked “Lado Oscuro”, wake up and indicators of ports begin morphing into network traces and system identifications. Visually it is like 3D colored dandelions blooming and their seeds blowing into the wind. Jorge says to Rachael, “Each of those dandelion seeds is a short term network flow. They are dumping the packet routing logs on their standard access routes. Looks like this remote administration team is more concerned with covering their past access tracks than they are in recovering the datacenter we are penetrating.”
“Seems you guested it, Jorge,” says Leo. “I’m seeing servers being burned and data overwrite programs proliferating.” The modeled display tracks in Hilbert space are terminating in explosion icons. “Damn, their house auto guns just got set to 'autonomous kill all' operation. Who the f**k does that. AC to the servers and batteries is now turned off. It’s going to get very hot, very quickly. Fire is a possibility as they just started to short the backup batteries.”
Call Resolution
Jorge calls out, “Ok, ground team, time to hightail it out of there. Ninan, start exfiltration. Dawn, I’m sending you the car and releasing it to local operation. Close on the warehouse and watch for the team exiting. Not able to predict where and when they will get out. Operations team: Release the datacenter but not the building network. Everyone except Leo and Pedro should now track the remote administrators. I want taps on every data access pipe out of Honk Kong. Look for traffic peaks covering the counter attack timing. Pedro, you and Leo find and disable all local internal defenses in that warehouse. Keep it off our boy and girl.”
Ninan taps Kiko-Lyn’s shoulder. “Time to Extract. Can you move quickly?”
“I couldn’t authenticate to charge my batteries here. I’ve only got power left for about five minutes of parkour, but that should be enough to clear this building,” responds Kiko-Lyn.
“Ok,” says Ninan. “Let’s merge maps and I’ll race you. I figure with my handicap of needing to counter the fire from auto guns, we might be evenly matched.”
Kiko-Lyn swallows nervously, but chins up and says, “Lead on, McDuff.”
Jorge cuts in, “We do not own their full network. Should be able to disable some defenses as we see them come on line. But that will take as much as 60 seconds for an autonomous mode gun. Kiko-Lyn, parkour stagger running and acrobatics; hands and feet. Use walls and ceiling as well as floors, just like in your training. But stay serious. These will not be paintballs.”
As Ninan swings the LRAD over his back and loops the straps through his shoulders, Kiko-Lyn flashes on the image of Captain America. “Too bad you can’t throw that thing like a shield.”
Ninan responds by roughing her mouse ears. “It’s non-lethal and damn expensive; but after ten minutes of this baby in continuous mode, I doubt that there is any biological defenders within a block radius left in any shape to delay us. You just worry about dodging. I’ve still got two metal storm tubes which can disable an auto gun each.”
Pedro breaks in, “We just crashed the local exit control locks on the building at this exit door.” He flags it on their internal maps. “Go Go Go.”
Ninan thinks Kiko-Lyn is a thing of wonder traversing the halls: three strides down, a bounce off either wall, a flip up to the ceiling at a corner, a summersault into the next. Repeating in altered patterns. Cartwheeling and layout flips across a library room while scooping up a journal from the desk she slides across. As she continues outbound, her swarm joins her; mimicking her moves, following her as the dominate flier in the murmuration. These dragonflies flash continuously, strobing in contrasting colors. It is enough distraction for Ninan to close on auto guns and Taser the first two they cross. Then Kiko-Lyn bounces into a “T” intersection and immediately springs off the back wall returning to their corridor. Two dragonflies are shot out of the air shattering. She peals a third off of her chest where it impacted after stopping a bullet. She crouches in a runners starting stance; her lungs heaving. “I saw what looks like the exit just past that gun emplacement. Gun is 15 meters down.”
