The Origin Point: A Future Tech Cyber Novella by Case Lane

wondering if you could use your expertise to double-check our
systems and confirm no permanent damage has been done."
    "A breach?"
    "Yes I'm afraid so."
    "What kind of breach?"
    "We don't know. We suspect one of our
laptops was compromised and the damage may have spilled over into
the whole system."
    "Spilled over? Julia, this facility was
set-up to avoid accidents. What happened?"
    Julia briefly hesitated before confessing,
"A reporter gave Marco Manuel a USB flash drive with documents
appearing to be the 2100 policy papers. Apparently the drive was
found in a restaurant. Marco put the device into his laptop, and
the laptop went offline after displaying a message stating 'thank
you.' He sent the laptop to IT to review and they cannot find any
issues. We have not seen any problems directly in the servers
either. But we are wary. I know you do not want to be called up for
every little problem around here, but we felt this was a major
issue and you had to be advised. If an incident arises you should
be the first to know. Plus the equipment is all yours, if there is
a technical error you are probably the one person who would be able
to understand the impact."
    Carter leaned back in his seat, and took a
moment to ensure his voice displayed no identifiable emotion. "Well
I appreciate your honesty. My team can check the servers and
connections and let you know. But a reporter? What's this all
about? What was on the drive?"
    "The reporter's name is Dallas Winter, and
she got the drive from a friend of hers who's a restaurateur,
Fresno Tyler, the owner of Infrared."
    "Infrared? Cool name."
    "And a cool place. The restaurant is a very
popular spot near the White House. Many elected and unelected
officials frequent the establishment and many policy discussions
can be heard there every night."
    "And one of these restaurant guests had the
2100 files?"
    "Perhaps."
    "The real files?"
    "Yes. Winter recognized the FedSec template
used for the documents' format. And she brought her finding
directly to Marco."
    "Do you know who lost the drive?"
    "No."
    Carter narrowed his eyes. "Have you
attempted to investigate where the documents came from?"
    Julia shamefully twisted in her seat. In
managing only Dallas and Tyler's access to the files, she had
failed to focus on the number of other hands the information may
have passed through. "No," she admitted.
    "Wow. Negative publicity for this project is
not much of a concern for you?"
    Alarmed, Julia forcefully replied, "This
project is my highest priority. You know better than to accuse me
of downplaying an incident. We were focused on the people who did
not know the origin of the files, Winter and the restaurant owner.
We assumed the drive came from an insider who knew the content. The
source could even be connected to our team. We would not have
imagined multiple people would have had a look at the files before
Winter handed the documents to Marco."
    "But either way, you're not treating the
breach very seriously."
    "Do not accuse me of inattentiveness. Of
course we are treating the incident seriously."
    "Is there an investigation into the entire
set of circumstances?"
    "Yes, my investigation. You know I cannot
conduct business around this project any other way. I cannot launch
a large scale review of activities surrounding an issue only a
handful of people know about."
    Carter stood and walked to the window. "But
you can launch an investigation? Aren't there controls on all file
downloads?"
    "Yes."
    "You can tell which computer downloaded the
files onto the drive in the first place?"
    "Yes..." Julia hesitated, "...yes, I
suppose."
    "You did not know you have a function for
reading file downloads?"
    "Maybe not."
    Carter turned to face her. "Julia, if we are
going to be engaged in the most ground-breaking covert
international digital infrastructure project in history, we're
going to need a few rules."
    "Yes of course. But the work we have already
done was rapidly implemented. We really have not had