11:Solving Codes

DING! 

After Aria left, Evan went through the study material notes given to him by Aria.

Half an hour later, his phone chimed, indicating a notification.

He opened WhatsApp and saw the photo of a woman wearing casual clothes making a victory sign and standing beside a mature, beautiful woman.

"She messaged me from her number. And this woman beside her might be her mother." 

[Congrats, host! It seems you're slowly making your way into Aria's heart and will soon conquer her. Believe me, just propose to her already.] 

"No!" 

[Why? Doesn't she look good?] 

"Give me a quest to gain one billion rupees, and then I will think about it." 

[ (–_–) ] 

If the system were a human, it would have already shown Evan the middle finger. 

One billion rupees and even after that he said he would think about it... 

While the system lamented its fate, Evan opened the computer at the end of the room and clicked on the link. 

A series of lines appeared on a blank page, listing numerous companies along with their vulnerabilities. 

SecureSoft Solutions' Access Control Bypass: A flaw in SecureSoft Solutions' software allows regular users to gain access to admin-level functionalities or sensitive data due to a permission escalation bug. 

Reward: 200,000 Rs (Paid on the first day of next month.) 

SecureSoft Solutions' MemoryGuard: The MemoryGuard software from SecureSoft Solutions fails to release allocated memory properly, leading to performance issues or crashes due to memory leaks. 

Reward: 200,000 Rs (Paid on the first day of next month) 

RaceGuard Vulnerability in Microtect Solutions' SystemX: Under specific circumstances, concurrent processes accessing shared data in SystemX by Microtect Solutions could lead to unexpected behavior or allow the attackers to exploit race conditions. 

Reward: 200,000 Rs (Paid on the very next day the problem is solved.) 

Insecure Serialization in Fintech Solutions' DataVault: Malicious manipulation of serialized data in DataVault by Fintech Solutions could lead to code execution, enabling the attackers to inject and execute unauthorized code. 

Reward: 400,000 Rs (Paid on the same day the solutions are approved and reviewed.)

Evan stared at the prizes in disbelief. 

"What a hefty sum. There are a total of 11 loophole programs with the highest being paid with 400,000 Rs, equalling about 8K dollars, and the lowest being 50,000 Rs." 

Taking a deep breath, Evan selected the easiest one with 50k rupees and began typing. He typed the subsequent given data in Python and then started running tests to take notes of faults. 

He then marked out the problematic sections and began adding codes. 

The moment he focused on the code, a familiar sensation coursed through his body. 

"Uhhh!'' 

[Academic Skills +1] 

[Programming Skills +1]

[Programming Skills +2] 

He wasn't surprised by the gain in experience points, rather it was an easy way to earn money.

"Damn! Why didn't I know this before? Being antisocial kept me away from good things."

.....

SecureSoft Outsourcing Department, Galore City, Indra…. 

"Supervisor, it's another uneventful day," an employee on duty said to the supervisor with a bitter smile on his face. 

"There have been several problems this month. Since this is a tie-up with the government and we're starting from scratch, we're bound to encounter many loopholes," the manager said while sipping on his coffee. 

"But we need to speed up or the President will have our heads. This isn't a simple thing. Many companies have bid for this and except for us, many others are also working on it. However, knowing the difficulty and problems associated with it, he took a gamble by splitting the troublesome parts and offered rewards to attract innovative young minds," the supervisor explained. 

The workload has always been burdened on software companies as the boss always takes on too many projects in greed when they didn't even have that much workforce to compensate for that, many companies post a part of the problem online for others to solve but rarely, they get the solution.

"Even if someone manages to solve this before us, we will still be in trouble since it's released in parts. Once it is integrated into the source code system, another loophole might pop out," said an employee, which dampened the mood of everyone present.

The people in outsourcing and R&D were always under pressure. The higher-ups would delegate their hands on things one after another, leaving a mess for the lower ranks to clean up.

If they did their job magnificently and succeeded, they would be rewarded, but if the work was a tough nut to crack, they would be criticized several times along with being threatened to lose their job. 

"Ehhhh?What the fuck?" 

Suddenly, one of them looked at the computer and screamed in bewilderment. 

"What's wrong?" the one next to him asked after seeing his colleague react in such a way.

The man who had screamed ignored his colleagues' concern and shouted to call the supervisor, "Sir, someone contacted us through email asking about the problems." 

The supervisor, confused, asked, "What did the fellow ask for?" 

"The person asked if the problems posted had been solved and if not, whether the bounty could be settled within the next day if he solved everything."

"Everything?" The supervisor flinched back in shock. 

"Pfftt!"

The Manager. who was still taking a sip of his coffee, spurted whatever had entered his mouth.

"Where did this guy come from? We even hired a professional team to oversee this but even they couldn't solve all this and are still pulling their hair out in frustration."

The room fell silent until suddenly someone chuckled aloud.

"I think this has to be a joke. If this guy had solved one or two problems, I would have believed him. But everything? And since you said the person solved it from the website then he should be a student from a university so it feels even more unbelievable." 

The supervisor frowned but didn't immediately retort. It was outrageous and hard to believe, yet it was not as outrageous since many modern technological advancements had been made by students. 

For example, Hark created a vision book when he was just 19 years old, and now years later, look where he stands. 

"Let's end this farce. Just reply to the other party that if he has solved everything for real, we will give him an extra 10% reward. And even if he hasn't solved them all, as long as he has at least solved one, we will settle on the same day." 

As soon as the supervisor said, everyone stared at him with a blank look on their faces.