White-Hot Hack (Kate and Ian #2)(29)

“Freestanding?”

“Yes. How’d you know that?”

“Because no one wants their server room up against an exterior wall that might house water pipes. If they were to burst, it would ruin all their equipment. That’s why you won’t find many server rooms on the top floor or in the basement. Roofs can leak and basements can flood. Exterior windows can also be a potential security risk. Same with doors. If they can, most companies will try to utilize a room on a middle floor and then retrofit it for their needs by adding cooling and extra security features.”

“I noticed it’s the only place besides the building’s entrances that requires a badge.”

“I’m not surprised. Even a company with lax security knows to protect the hub of their operations.”

“There weren’t a lot of people going in or out. They’ve also got someone stationed nearby. I’m not sure if he’s responsible for keeping an eye on things or if that’s just where his desk is located.”

“Probably a little of both.”

She gestured toward his laptop. “What are you doing now?”

“I’m combing through every file on the network, looking for anything marked confidential or for internal use only. One thing you do not want a hacker to have is access to your private files. It could be a very embarrassing PR nightmare. Not only that, if they’re doing any kind of R&D, their secrets could be sold to a competitor.”

Ian wanted to take a look at the server room, so he and Kate went down over the lunch hour when there wouldn’t be as many people milling about. They walked past slowly, and Ian gave a small nod to let Kate know he’d seen enough. When they returned to the conference room, he told her he wanted her to make the rounds again as soon as everyone returned from lunch, and then they would be done for the day.

“That’s it? I feel like I’m just getting warmed up.”

“I’m sucking up an enormous amount of their bandwidth with my scans, yet no one seems to have noticed. It’s better to quit while I’m ahead. We’ve got three days, so we’ll start small and slowly become more visible. You’re going to be mingling among the employees more than I will, and I want them to get used to seeing you. But not too used to it. You’re very approachable and people will want to make friends with you, but you’ll need to keep them at a slight distance so they don’t become suspicious. By the third day, we can really push it because by then I want them to notice us.”

“So what will we be doing tomorrow?”

“Tomorrow you can start shoulder-surfing to see how discreet people are when it comes to typing in their passwords. You can also nose around their desks and eavesdrop on their conversations.”

“What about you?”

“I’ll finish looking through the files, and then we’re going to up our physical-entry game, and by that I mean figure out the best way to break into the server room.”

“We’re going to break into the server room?”

“You’re not. I am. That’s another place you don’t ever want a hacker poking around, and in order to show the CIO we’re truly the best at exposing a company’s security weaknesses, I need to get inside. It will prove there’s no place in this company we couldn’t go.”

“There aren’t a lot of people going in and out. Won’t that make it extremely difficult to tailgate your way in?”

“I’m not going to tailgate. But unfortunately, I can’t pick that kind of lock either.”

“You know how to pick locks?”

“I can get past a standard lock in about ten seconds if I have my lockpicking kit.”

She looked at him like he was crazy. “Your lockpicking kit. This is a thing you own?”

He smiled brightly and nodded. “We used to have contests at MIT. I can break into almost anything.”

“Sometimes you straight-up scare me. If you know so much about locks, why didn’t you use that knowledge to lock my apartment and go home when I was sick instead of sleeping on my couch and barging in on me in the bathtub?”

“Well, for starters, I wasn’t trying to unlock your apartment door. And secondly, I didn’t have my tools. And thirdly—and most importantly—I didn’t want to leave.”

“So how are you going to break into the server room?”

“I’m not sure. I’ll have to think on it for a while. But never fear. There’s a way in. There always is.”





CHAPTER FOURTEEN

Kate and Ian tailgated their way into the building on day two. Ian sailed through with his coffee and donuts, but things didn’t go quite as smoothly for Kate. As she prepared to fall in with a small group of people bottlenecked near the door, a woman in her early twenties juggling a Starbucks carrier with four cups of coffee, an iPad, and her purse seemed to be waiting for Kate to buzz them in. Trying to remain calm, she smiled and gestured helplessly with her box toward the only other person whose eye she could catch. The young man looked more than happy to help them as he swiped his badge and held the door open until they both passed through.

The girl who had her hands full looked at him with stars in her eyes and said, “Thanks.”

He gave her an aw shucks, it was nothing grin. “You’re welcome.”