Moriarty had been approached for a particular job. It was a bit of corporate espionage. An emerging front-runner in the field of green energy was to very soon be audited by the government. A long established but slightly fading rival firm wanted the emerging company to be found lacking 'internal control' in several departments, as the client put it. Which in Jim's frank clarification meant, they wanted the criminal to go in dirty up the front-runner's books then clumsily cover it up. It was a relatively simple plan; the fledging corporation would end up owing the government money that not only did they not have but had already paid. However, to do this the long-standing company needed a skilled hacker, who could alter the books without even setting foot on site.
Enter Moriarty.
Contrary to popular belief, Jim does not limit himself to thievery, bribery, smuggling, and murder. He is quite skilled with computers, very good at hacking. Perhaps that went hand and hand with the math bit, but Jim could churn out all sorts of code; be it the illegal transfer of funds to the remote access of a network and reorganization of files. He had corrupted websites. He had adjusted the national records too many times to count. He had killed the power to half of Bristol one summer out of pure boredom. He had even designed an iPhone app, which he'd use to call his minions into action when he was breaking into the Tower. Like you could get that kind of thing at the app store. Ha.
So, when this energy company wants to tank their rival they come to Jim, who accepts.
"That looks like utter gibberish," Sherlock states irritably, from somewhere behind the criminal in the study. Jim's fingers are tapping keys in some non-stop arrhythmic pace. He is already past the second firewall. It's the night before the scheduled audit. Everything is going swimmingly. The detective has begun to pace. Though Sherlock has his own blog categorizing the distinctive features of two hundred and forty-three kinds of tobacco ash, he never bothered to learn a programming language.
"Just because you can't follow along, does not mean it's non-sense," Jim says, voice quiet and distracted as he works. The criminal's lips quirk up when he hears a huff of annoyance from behind him. "I'll narrate what I'm doing for you, how about that?" Jim doesn't wait for a reply, if he gets one it's not verbal and he sure as fuck isn't turning around now. Very delicate business here.
"I've just passed their second firewall," His voice still distracted, lyricism toned down a hundred fold but still there somewhere. "And am working on the final one."
"How are you going to make so it doesn't look like this was all done in one night by one person?"
"Well..." Jim sat back and turned to the detective. "That's the beauty of it. Once it says I'm through, we'll adjust the information. Simple. Then as we leave we change the records that say when certain IP addresses log in to the network and what network files they access."
"Effectively pinning it all on their employees." Jim watched Sherlock, as he waited for the network to allow him admittance. "And you'll delete the record of yourself naturally."
"Naturally," Jim grinned. Sherlock smiled back, then something caught his attention behind Jim. He gestured to the screen, the criminal turned his chair and placed his fingers on the keys again. "We're in."
"How much time do you have?" Sherlock asked. Jim shrugged.
"I wouldn't want to be here for more than an hour and a half. They may have more security programs that will sweep the network periodically to detect hacks, though I rather doubt it."
"It's a company that's pioneering the green energy field. It has very lucrative prospects. Why wouldn't they extend every precaution?"
"They only had three firewalls. And they don't have a network analyzer. Actually, I'm rather disappointed they don't. It's at least somewhat of a challenge when companies do."
Sherlock was not going to even bother asking what a network analyzer is. He was pacing, again. Jim sat back in his swivel chair, again.
"Okay, here, pick some files from this list I've pulled." The detective leaned on the back of Jim's chair as he looked over the criminal's shoulder. Sherlock scanned file names. Financial breakdown of 2010, Financial breakdown of 2011, Estimated Budget for 2010-2015...yes, yes. He leaned down, closer to Jim, stretching out his right arm to point to the names of the soon to be altered files.
"This one and this one and this one and..." The detective trailed off, smirking.
Jim grinned, turning his head to Sherlock's, right next to his.
"How in the red do you want to leave them?"