Under attack (2)

15 seconds left... 10 seconds left...

Notification was shown that third server is under attack. 'They are already on third out of five servers! But this third one has additional security added. If they get through this one as fast as the other ones, I'm in trouble.'

5 seconds left... 4... 3... 2... 1... Copy done 100%.

Sarah quickly went to erase all logs from the data center where she got the files from.

"Eve, what is the status on their progress on the server where you set up additional firewall?"

"Master, they are still trying to get through additional password encryption.", Eve's voice came through Sarah's earpiece.

"Good. Keep me informed if they make any progress." Sarah erased all her activity from the logs in less than a minute. "Eve, shut down the servers."

When all compromised servers were shut down, Sarah sighed in relief. 'Now whoever wanted to get in, can just play alone in the dark...'.

At that time, Aiden rushed into her office. "Daniel called me. What happened?" He looked concerned.

Sarah held her forehead in her hand and took a deep breath. She gestured to him to close the door. "Someone got two servers in, our scripts failed." Sarah looked at him seriously. "Whoever it was, knows our systems. It took him only twenty seconds per server. I set up additional encryption on third server, and he didn't get in even after two minutes."

Aiden frowned, "You want to say that it's someone from our team?"

Sarah shook her head. She didn't want to confirm with absolute evidence, but it most likely is someone from their team. "I'm waiting for confirmation on that. Whoever that was, knows how the servers are set up and how to get in... but does not have skills to hack if anything is done differently. I got the scripts and logs, before servers got wiped out."

"Nice! That was some quick thinking and even faster execution!", Aiden praised her.

Sarah smiled, "Eve helped. Without her I would need to abort everything."

"You got the files?" Aiden was pleasantly surprised. But then he reminded himself that he should get used to Sarah doing impossible things.

"Yup." Sarah was proud that even with all this mess she still accomplished her original task.

"I'm sorry I was not here..." Aiden was troubled. Sarah does not need him often, but now she needed him, and he was not there for her.

"It's OK. I managed." Sarah saw that his mood is off, and she tried to comfort him with a small smile.

"Master", Sarah heard Eve through her earpiece. "I traced the attacker back to White corp. HQ building."

Sarah looked at Aiden. "The person who did this, attacked from this building."

"Do you think it's Evalina?", Aiden immediately went to the point.

"She is in charge of scripts, and they failed to execute on more than one server. Attack came from this building. Attacker knows how to get into our servers... even if it's not her, I'm confident that it's someone from our team." Sarah was quiet for a minute, observing Aiden's expression. She was not able to read what is on his mind.

"The good thing is that attacker does not know that I got the logs and scripts before they got wiped out. That should help in figuring out what happened and who did it. Everyone is a suspect... including you." Sarah looked at Aiden.

Aiden was startled by this. How can she doubt him? "You got to be kidding, right? You don't think I did this?"

Sarah didn't suspect him, but she has to do this properly. "What I think does not matter. Evidence shows that it's someone from this team. Since I was attacked, I will investigate this myself and present what I find out. You should stay out of this, so that you are not implicated."

Aiden understood that if he gets involved, he can be accused of favoritism or modifying the evidence to point at someone else. Sarah is telling him to keep out of this, for his sake. "OK. I will stay away. But if you need help, let me know."

"Just keep everyone out of my way until I figure this out. It should not take long to go through the collected data. I will use Eve to speed up the process." Sarah looked at his concerned expression and smiled. Her heart was full thinking that he is worried about her. "Go now and give me some privacy. I want to make some sense out of this mess and figure out who did it... as soon as possible."

Sarah saw his troubled expression and her heart ached. She stood up and embraced him.

He felt useless because he can't help her. The only thing he could think of is to hold her tight. After some time in silence, Aiden reluctantly left her office.

...

After half an hour, Sarah analyzed collected data with Eve and found out that scripts are modified in such a way that if user sarhill (Sarah's alias in White corp.) tries executing them, they will stop running. File info for scripts shows that last modification was done by user evalro (Evalina's alias in White corp.)

Sarah's final conclusion is that there are two points to address here:

1: Script failures: Evalina modified scripts to fail, and they will fail only if Sarah is the one using them!

2: Attack on servers while Sarah is getting data... it was done from White corp. by a person who knows how servers are set up. Potential suspects: Evalina, Fox, Daniel, Aiden.

Sarah does not believe that Aiden would do something like this, but she needs to be objective, and look at everyone. Aiden has the knowledge. On the other side, if he was the one, he would get into third server without much issues. The fact that slight modifications blocked the attack, means that the person executing it does not have good hacking skills... that definitely excludes Aiden.

As for the other three, she will let Aiden and Jeff figure out which one of them did it.

Evalina is definitely involved. But it's not conclusive that she is the only one. Someone else might have executed the attack.