Chapter 565: At Least Still Alive

Boston, United States, Bruker Corporation headquarters.

A new week, everything proceeding as planned.

The technical supervisor entered the office, and the secretary brought in freshly ground coffee.

No milk, no sugar; the scent of the burnt aroma unique to Robusta beans drifted through the air.

Campbell took a sip and frowned.

It was bitter, but the flavor was too weak to support the brain's high-speed operation throughout the day.

Looking in the mirror again, he was only thirty-two, yet he already had gray hair.

Patiently drinking more than half, Campbell set down the coffee cup and pressed the power button on his computer.

The system was still loading when, with two knocks, the secretary stood at the door: "Sir, Mr. Taylor is here to visit."

Subsequently, a thin figure appeared at the doorway, clutching a notebook under his arm.

In his early forties, full of vigor.

This was the Security Supervisor of the headquarters, responsible for technical security, customer data, and the supply chain.

Although the two were good friends, they did not work in the same building, so unless the headquarters held a joint technology and security meeting, Taylor rarely came here. Campbell joked: "Taylor, did Lehman's stock finally break even?"

"NO!" Taylor shrugged, "The reason I'm happy is because our boss, Grand, is about to lose a huge sum of money!" Their boss certainly was not named Grand, but because he was tyrannical, arrogant, and stingy, it was a nickname given by the employees.

Campbell raised an eyebrow: "Did the company Anderson invested in go bankrupt too?"

"Almost, look at this!"

Saying this, Taylor opened his computer and pushed it in front of Campbell.

Campbell glanced at it: Tor?

Also known as Onion Routing, it was initially developed with funding from the United States military for network security encryption. But as it developed to the present, it had become a transit station for criminals to trade contraband.

Here, everything prohibited by law could be traded. From small items like antibiotics, to medium ones like human organs, to large ones like arms, and even missiles. As for whether one could actually buy them, that was unknown.

Campbell did not know why Taylor was showing him this.

It couldn't be that Anderson had slept with the black maid at home and someone had taken photos and posted them on the dark web?

Thinking this with schadenfreude, Taylor pointed at the screen: "Campbell, click on this email!"

Campbell clicked the mouse, but he did not see the big belly and "little earthworm" of Anderson he had expected, but rather a text-based email. The content was very brief: Do you want to turn one thousand dollars into ten thousand?

Come here next Monday, and you will participate in a tsunami-like carnival.

Below were two web links. One was very familiar; Campbell looked at it at least three or four times a week: the trading page for Bruker Corporation stock. The second one he did not recognize, but looking at the path, it should be a network node encrypted by an Onion Router.

Since it was Taylor's computer anyway, there was no need to worry about viruses, so Campbell clicked on both links.

Sure enough, the first one was the trading page for Bruker Corporation stock: the situation was good, with a slight increase compared to last week, enough for him to take his lover on a refreshing trip abroad during the holiday.

But the second one was not a webpage at all, but a standalone information page.

At the very top were a few lines of text:

One, please forward this to the Security Supervisor of Bruker Corporation and convey the following: If you do not wish to see Bruker Corporation's stock avalanche next week, please transfer ten million US dollars to the following account.

Two, deadline: April 20, 2009.

Three, please verify with the Security Supervisor.

Four, account number:...

The rest was all code.

After reading it again, Campbell spread his hands: "Taylor, are you joking?"

Taylor shrugged: "When the Group Leader sent it to me, I also thought he was joking!"

"But he told me to carefully spell out the first section of code..."

What was wrong with the code?

Campbell lowered his head again: defineINTERLOCKMASK0.1...

Hmm, why did this look so familiar?

No... this seemed to be the Interlock Safety Code for the X-ray diffraction instrument (XRD) security system.

Below were more:

#defineINTERLOCK_CHAMBER001//... controls the sample chamber door.

#defineINTERLOCK_WATER002//... cooling water flow.

#defineINTERLOCKTEMP004//... X-ray tube temperature.

#defineINTERLOCKVACUW%00/... optical path vacuum level.

#defineINTERLOCKEMERGENCY0.10//... emergency stop button. Besides these, there were a few more lines below: Hardware Register, Data Logging, Calibration Data, Audit Log.

And, Safety Control, Motion Control, Safety Interlock.

Campbell jerked his head up, his mouth open wide enough to fit a fist.

He was the technical supervisor of Bruker Corporation; no matter what the product was, whether it was a research plan or a Core Module, even if he was not responsible for the development, all core programming was ultimately checked and confirmed by him.

Therefore, he was most familiar with these codes: they were all the source code for the core control and Safety Interlock of the third-generation X-ray diffraction instrument (XRD). But why would they appear on an illegal trading website?

Taylor spread his hands: "Don't look at me, I don't know where it came from either."

Campbell stared: "Who did this?"

Taylor shrugged: "Encrypted interception, the specific IP cannot be traced; for now, we only know the registration is in the United Kingdom!"

They both knew the registration location was definitely virtual; Campbell and Taylor could write hundreds of such IP Addresses in a minute. What Campbell wanted to ask was, who leaked the Safety Interlock password and the core source code?

Anderson?

No, although Anderson's brain had degenerated and he only knew how to think with his lower body, he was not stupid enough to destroy his own company with his own hands. But apart from Anderson, no one else knew both the Safety Interlock password and the core source code.

Including him and Taylor.

Could it be that a hacker had completely breached Bruker's Firewall?

No, this is impossible.

Otherwise, Taylor would not be so relaxed.

Campbell scrolled the mouse and flipped to the very beginning: If you don't want Bruker Corporation's stock to avalanche, please transfer ten million US dollars to the following account. It was clearly hacker extortion.

He copied the account number, preparing to input it into a search engine.

Taylor, however, shook his head: "Campbell, it's useless: the account does not exist!"

"Can't look it up?"

"It's not that it can't be looked up, but that the account is fake!"

Taylor sat down and scrolled the mouse: "The good news is, the post's view count is not high, only twenty-eight times... so, no one takes what it says as true; they all think it's a prank!"

"The bad news is: the IP Address cannot be found, we don't know who the other party is, nor do we know the other party's purpose; whether we call the police or use other means, it's all useless!"

Campbell was stunned for a moment and looked at the view count on the initial interface: adding the time Taylor exited and re-entered, it had now become twenty-nine. This meant that, apart from Taylor, the Security Supervisor, and himself, no one else had discovered this post yet.

No, even if they discovered it, no one would take it seriously.

Because apart from him, Taylor, and a few Senior Engineers, no one could recognize what these garbled codes represented. Looking at it again, Campbell understood: this post could only be accessed via the link in the email.

To put it bluntly: only people from Bruker Corporation could see it.

Campbell felt a sense of relief in his heart: "Are there any similar links on the dark web?"

"None discovered for now, this is the second piece of good news. But that's not the point... Come, Campbell, look at what I found?" Taylor scrolled the mouse, exited the mailbox, and opened the Security Department's internal webpage.

Subsequently, he copied the code from the dark web, pasted it into the command bar, and tapped the Enter key with a "pop."

The webpage flashed, and dense code appeared, moving extremely fast, page after page.

After nearly three minutes, the page stopped, and two photos appeared on the screen.

Campbell's pupils suddenly constricted:

He knew both of these people.

The first one was a former Security Department Supervisor who was forced to resign and had left the company two years ago.

The second one was a Group Leader in the R&D Department.

He had reached the age limit, his technical skills were falling behind, and the Human Resources Department was preparing to transfer him. The next step after that would be dismissal.

That these two photos could appear here only indicated one thing: among the Bottom-layer Password and source code sent by the hacker, one part was marked with the fingerprints of these two.

To put it simply: it was leaked through the authorization of these two.

What Campbell found strange was not the leak: for money, security personnel at tech companies leaking passwords and engineers leaking core source code was not uncommon in the United States.

Especially since these were two Senior Engineers who had been treated unfairly and held a grudge against the company.

But even if these people risked jail and huge compensation to leak secrets, they could not threaten the company's security. Because they knew limited information; even if they leaked, they couldn't leak this much.

For example, security lock passwords: they are changed periodically and kept in classified storage. Let alone the departed Security Supervisor, even Taylor only knew one-third. Or take core source code: Campbell was the technical supervisor responsible for the supervision and review of all instrument R&D technology. But even he only knew which programs these codes controlled, yet did not know the core Operating Logic.

But what the hacker sent was all core. This meant he knew all the security lock passwords, and even more so, all the source code for the operating programs.

These two alone could not possibly do this. All engineers in the coding chain must have been bought off...

Campbell suddenly raised his head: "Does the company still have a mole?"

Taylor shrugged, meaning congratulations, you guessed right.

"I have already notified Anderson; he is vacationing in Bangkok and won't arrive until tonight. But he has authorized me to investigate with full authority..."

"Campbell, I need your support!"

"Of course!" Campbell frowned, "Does the technology department also have a mole?"

"There should be, including the security department, otherwise the data couldn't have been leaked so thoroughly! So Campbell, I need your authorization..." Campbell nodded heavily: "Taylor, no problem!"

As a technical supervisor, cooperating with the security department to execute security tasks was his duty to begin with.

What he was worried about was not this...

After a brief pause, Campbell looked toward the office door: the door was closed tightly; the secretary knew they were discussing matters and was not in the outer room. Campbell lowered his voice: "Taylor, what about the stock?"

Taylor was stunned for a moment and said very seriously: "Old friend, although I especially hope that miser Anderson goes bankrupt, I don't want to wake up tomorrow morning with Anderson's pistol in my mouth..."

Campbell's eyes dimmed: if they dared to dump the stock, Anderson really could do it.

But if they didn't dump it, they would very likely go bankrupt.

The house would be confiscated, his wife would divorce him, and he would only be able to sleep on the streets.

"If the core source code of the Bottom-layer Password is really sold on the dark web, you and I will both become homeless!"

Campbell gritted his teeth, "Taylor, I swear, this is absolutely not alarmist talk."

The leakage of the Bottom-layer Password and source code for scientific research instruments is not just about being unable to pay for subscriptions or failing to upgrade systems, but a destructive disaster. First, the equipment control rights are completely compromised, and the instruments become puppets: attackers can arbitrarily tamper with the instrument's performance parameters, causing systemic deviations in all sample test results.

For example, start angle, end angle, step angle, counting time... and so on and so forth.

Secondly, changing energy parameters to deliberately destroy precious samples.

For example, voltage, current, ray intensity.

But these two points are only secondary; there is something even more serious:

Tampering with data, implicit contamination: secretly tampering with alignment parameters, modifying irradiation stress, distorting raw data, and judging completely incorrect test data as qualified.

Or even replacing data, changing "2" to "1", changing "No" to "Yes".

If it were a general institution, such as a hospital, it would certainly lead to phenomena where patients without cancer are diagnosed with cancer, and critically ill patients are diagnosed as completely healthy.

If it were a technical R&D institution, the consequences would be even more serious: modifying algorithm parameters in the Core Module, causing experimental data to produce errors, leading the entire research direction into a dead end.

Until it is discovered that the system has been invaded and data has been hijacked.

But what if it were a biological R&D or pharmaceutical institution?

The consequences are even more serious: a slight deviation in molecular structure can kill people.

But this is not the end: if the intruder remains lurking and motionless, waiting in the dark for the research institution to develop complete technical achievements, then copying them. For example, drugs: the controller can use remote control to copy the complete activity of the High-throughput Screening Instrument in drug R&D, as well as the compound Database. And through bottom-layer access, crack the reverse engineering of core technology, parsing all experimental processes and design algorithms.

To give an example: Johnson & Johnson just developed an anti-cancer drug, still in the verification stage, and a competitor suddenly launches it first.

And the efficacy is exactly the same as theirs?

Just imagine, what kind of concept is this?

By then, it won't just be a matter of whether Bruker goes bankrupt or whether Anderson gets fed to a Crocodile, but all investors holding Bruker Corporation stock will lose everything they have.

Taylor remained silent: he certainly knew.

However, if they sold their stocks first and the company really went bankrupt in the end, even if Anderson couldn't spare the time, those wealthy people could still tear them to pieces.

Including their families.

Because in the eyes of these people, they are also among the insiders.

It is better to live a miserable life than to die; being a homeless person is still better than being kidnapped to Mexico, tortured to the limit, and then ground into meat paste to feed pigs.

He also dared to swear that this was definitely not to scare Campbell.

Taylor shook his head: "Campbell, let's investigate first, and wait until Anderson returns!"

Campbell looked disappointed: "Taylor, imagine this: if we can't find it, or even worse, if someone buys the password and source code before we find it?"

Taylor replied without hesitation: "We can only notify all clients, recall the equipment, and replace the Core Module!"

"Taylor, do you know how much money that is?" Campbell let out a laugh, "And the stock will still fall like an avalanche!" "It's better than going completely bankrupt!" Taylor shrugged, "At least you and I can still find a decent job. At least, we are both still alive!"

Campbell opened his mouth, unable to find a reply.