Chapter 239

Zhao Jianguo flipped the phone screen over, stared at that interception record for another two seconds. Firelight flickered on his face then went out. He didn't drink anymore, stood up directly, "Come on, let's go check."

Dong Xu stood up following him, the two went one after another from the roof down, heading straight for the Main Control Console. Nobody spoke on the way.

Zhao Jianguo entered the room, sat before the Main Control Console, and pulled up the complete access log. Data streams scrolled by line by line; his fingers tapped the keyboard not quickly, but each hit landed on a key position. After a few minutes, he stopped on a group of abnormal request packets.

"This isn't ordinary scanning." He said, "It's a probing injection, clear target, practiced technique."

Dong Xu leaned in to look at the screen, "You mean the other side knows we're on guard?"

"Not knowing." Zhao Jianguo shook his head, "It's deliberate to let us find a trace, lure us into lowering our guard. Look at this response interval—each attack is spaced thirty-seven seconds apart, too regular. If it were random probing, it wouldn't be so neat."

As his words fell, the monitoring panel beside him suddenly popped up a new alarm: APP server load surged, user login requests increased fivefold.

"Here they come." Zhao Jianguo immediately switched interface, entered command to block the high-frequency IP segment. But just as he finished blocking a batch, new addresses popped up like tide, wave after wave.

"Distributed attack." He frowned, "It's using a botnet."

As they were speaking, the door was pushed open; He Yushui rushed in carrying a bag, her hair a bit messy, her glasses askew.

"I just went online and saw the alarm; the backend has already started losing data!" She walked to another terminal, sat down, quickly pulled up the database status, "The maintenance work orders are all messed up; someone changed next week's pipe inspection to today at 3 PM, and someone deleted the permission records of over ten households."

Zhao Jianguo nodded, "They're not just trying to crash the system; they also want residents to think this APP is unreliable."

"Goal achieved." He Yushui gave a bitter laugh, "The group has exploded; San Daye sent a voice message saying they'll collectively boycott use, and even urged everyone to post notices 'Stay away from electronic gadgets'."

"Then let them see what a real electronic gadget is." Zhao Jianguo opened a hidden menu and activated "Network Security Skill."

The interface flashed, the whole network topology map re-rendered. Originally chaotic traffic lines began to layer; malicious requests were marked as red thin lines, tracing upward along the path.

"Found it." He pointed to one of the detour routes, "Although they used seven layers of proxy hop, the handshake protocol of that final node is problematic—the encryption method is the same as that used by Xu Da Mao's old gang."

"Old K?" Dong Xu blurted out.

"Exactly." Zhao Jianguo snorted coldly, "Back when he was smuggling electronic watches, he was in charge of remote support; later he vanished without a trace. Now he pops up to mess with our system—either he's short on cash, or he's been pushed out as a scapegoat."

He Yushui listened, her hands didn't stop; while reinforcing firewall rules, she deployed bait accounts, "Should we feed some fake data in? See how deep he'll bite."

"No need for us to feed him." Zhao Jianguo had already set up a honeypot system, "Just wait for him to run into it."

Over the next two hours, the four people guarded the Main Control Console. Outside, the sky gradually darkened, lights in the courtyard came on one after another, but none of them noticed the time.

The attack continued, but the rhythm changed. The other side seemed to notice some accounts behaving oddly, began to shrink their actions, retaining only the lowest-frequency data reads.

"Trying to hide?" Zhao Jianguo chuckled lightly, "Too late."

He pulled up the keyboard behavior analysis module, compared the input rhythms of all login sessions. Soon, an operation habit report was generated: before hitting Enter there's always a brief pause, the delete key is used unusually often, the command-line parameter order is fixed—all old K's old habits.

"The evidence chain can be closed." He said, "IP hopping route, protocol features, operation habits, historical related persons—all match."

Dong Xu immediately asked, "Should we do a reverse infiltration now?"

"No." Zhao Jianguo shook his head, "They're hiding on an overseas relay server; if we act, it would be crossing the border. But the public security can."

He packaged the whole set of data, encrypted it, and sent it through the dedicated channel left by the Special Forces Captain, attaching a "Technical Assistance Explanation" that detailed the legal elements needed for filing a case.

After doing all that, he finally relaxed his breath, leaned back in the chair and rubbed his eyes.

He Yushui was still busy; the new version of the APP was undergoing emergency upgrade. She added a dynamic protection bar on the homepage, showing real-time interception counts and threat level, the green numbers constantly jumping, just looking at it makes one feel reassured.

"Putting this online tomorrow will at least let everyone know the system hasn't collapsed." She said.

"Not just that." Zhao Jianguo pointed at the screen, "You open-source this module, label it 'Community Built Version'. Young people love to tinker; letting them join in will both spread risk and cultivate awareness."

He Yushui's eyes lit up, "We can also form a 'Safety Volunteer' team, specifically to teach the elderly how to recognize phishing links."

"Let's do it like that." Zhao Jianguo nodded.

At midnight, the attack suddenly stopped. All abnormal IPs disappeared, network traffic returned to normal.

"They ran." Dong Xu said.

"Not ran." Zhao Jianguo stared at the last disconnection record, "It was cut off by someone. Look at this logout signal—too clean, not like an active withdrawal, more like… they were silenced."

The three exchanged a glance, and didn't say anything more.

The next morning, He Yushui had just entered the room when she brought news: "Public security replied, based on the clues we provided, the cross-border apprehension team has already acted; last night they intercepted two technicians at the border, one of whom admitted participating in the attack planning."

"What about the mastermind?"

"Still being pursued, but it's basically confirmed that Old K is leading. Their attack script still contains annotations he wrote years ago, reading 'A gift for Sha Zhu's son'."

Zhao Jianguo just smiled hearing that, "Stubborn to this extent, also counts as having a beginning and an end."

At noon, the system popped up a prompt: 【Network environment purification +12%, achievement "Hacker Behavior Analysis Technique" unlocked】.

He clicked to see; the new feature can automatically identify similar attack patterns, giving advance warning of similar threats within the next three days.

"Quite practical." He on the spot set a rule: once Old K's habitual method is detected, immediately freeze the related IP and push an alarm.

In the afternoon, the APP resumed operation. He Yushui issued a safety bulletin, explaining the whole process in plain language, and added a cartoon: a little masked figure holding a hammer smashes a wall, only to be electrocuted by the alarm inside the wall, smoke pouring out.

The cursing in the residents' group lessened, and many people began to forward.

A kid resembling a middle schooler private messaged Zhao Jianguo: "Uncle, I also want to learn how to catch bad guys; can you teach me?"

He replied "able", then sent over the basic network security tutorial.

On the third evening, the public security officially announced: the hacker gang of three was apprehended, the principal culprit Old K had been extradited back to the country, and the case entered trial proceedings.

When Zhao Jianguo received the news, he was sitting in the Main Control Console, holding a tablet and checking the latest protection log. The screen's lower-right corner displayed "Quantum-resistant encryption standby awaiting load", the progress bar stuck at sixty-eight percent.

He Yushui stood beside him debugging code, suddenly said: "You say why they had to target us? They could clearly do something else."

"Because they think we've changed." Zhao Jianguo stared at that unmoving progress bar, "Before this place was a broken courtyard, anyone could step on it. Now it's different—we have our own things, and we can defend them."

He paused, reached out and tapped the screen, "This is called tranquility."

As his words fell, the loading bar jumped to ninety-nine percent.

The next second, a line of text slowly appeared:

Please enter the initial key to activate the defense matrix