Chapter 31: Breaking and Entering 3: Updating Data
After midnight, Reno, Rude, and Cissnei again infiltrated The Midgar Mirror's offices.
They carried the same equipment as during their last incursion, plus a few additions. IT and Cyberweapons had been working around the clock to alter the centerfold picture. The one the Turks all carried on special devices had been suitably modified to test as fake, but only if examined with several passes on exquisitely specialized equipment.
Equipment they knew The Midgar Mirror possessed and utilized.
After the first incursion, they knew how to disable security systems, how to avoid being spotted by overnight staff, how to get around the office building, and exactly where to go to plant their falsified evidence.
IT and Cyberweapons had broken through the Mirror's firewalls and completed their hacking on the networked servers before the Turks ventured out of headquarters that night. The publication, distribution, backup, email and communications servers had all been overwritten with the updated data. All online copies sourced from the Mirror now contained the modified centerfold image. Even all copies of the spite-email sent to Lana Vale and subsequently passed around the Mirror's staff had been updated.
The three Turks made their way through the office building, loading the centerfold image everywhere that had no connections to external networks. Their very first stops were the digital forensics' offices and the chief editor's office. No vault or thumb drive was safe. The Turks also used a special tool to infect the Mirror's private servers with the SEPNET worm to seek out and update any centerfold images it came across.
Reno had no idea how it actually worked, even after being subjected to an extensive and enthusiastic explanation from one of the IT specialists. He just trusted that the end result would function efficiently.
His lack of interest hadn't stopped that woman from explaining in excruciating detail the differences between a virus and a worm, how worms propagated across networks and systems, and how SEPNET's functionality had been enhanced with magic.
Much of it seemed incomprehensible, even if it had been dumbed down. She clearly loved her work because she'd gone on and on about it for quite a while. Reno had divided his attention between her and mentally planning his grocery list.
He had picked up on the important points, though. He prided himself on being a professional and having the ability to multitask.
After it infected a system, the worm replicated itself into thousands of copies. They were self-contained programs, with their primary purposes to locate and update the centerfold image, and to hit the network and spread to other connected systems. Only offline or unconnected storage and servers would be spared, and the instant anyone plugged those devices into the private internal network, or even connected them to another compromised device, the worm would infect them.
Since it would do no detectable damage to anyone's data—aside from the centerfold images—no one would realize it was there and try to clean it out. They wouldn't even think of it, and regular malware checkers couldn't find it, anyway. It had been designed to hide among the system files and was tailored without the common hallmarks that the checkers used to detect malicious software. Should it be discovered anyway, the Mirror's IT staff would have to wipe all the data and operating systems from all their servers and reload from their last backup.
With that in mind, Cyberweapons had located the last twenty-five backups from the time before the Mirror had even received the centerfold, and hacked them with the worm, as well. Any restore operation would completely update all of the centerfold images from connected servers.
The worm would eventually escape outside the Mirror's intranet, but that didn't matter to Shinra. Reno's IT specialist had explained that they had already released it into the public networks the previous morning to ensure the Mirror's personnel wouldn't find any unmodified copies of the centerfold online.
The worm was in public networks, servers, and devices all over the world by now. It worked that fast. Downright scary, Reno thought. At least it was on an internal timer. Copies of the worm would delete themselves. Eventually.
"Much easier this time," Cissnei remarked quietly, looking pleased under all her black face paint as they exited the building and melted into the shadows.
"Fuck, yeah," said Reno. Much easier, and much faster, too. They'd had better intel on the night staff this time and had steered clear of the janitors entirely. Any roaming security guards had also been avoided. Not that rent-a-cops were ever a serious concern to Turks.
Upon returning to the Shinra building, they met with Veld and Tseng in the Turk operations center.
Veld looked up from one of the monitors. "Everything go to plan?"
"The images on unconnected devices are all updated, and the worm is in place on no fewer than five of their private, internal servers," Reno said. "It's probably already spread to thousands of different systems. Everything went perfectly. No surprises this time."
"Excellent."
"So what's next?" Rude asked.
"Next? Next, you three go home and get some sleep. SEPNET can work its magic on the Mirror's toys without any additional help from us."
"What about the disinformation campaign?" Cissnei asked.
"Yeah, boss," said Reno. "When do we get to lean on some of those obnoxious media jerks?"
Tseng sat back in his chair and regarded the trio evenly. "The PR and Propaganda Department is still in the process of assembling portfolios. However, they have created some material that they claim is quite favorable. Apparently, the photos require some editing, but to quote the senior manager overseeing this PR effort, some of them are very cute and appealing." His lips turned up into a knowing smile. "I agree with her."
"Ms. Sato was definitely right about that," Veld added with a smirk and twinkling eyes. The expression was so weird on him that Reno did a double take. Veld continued, "They're adorable, in fact."
If the sly hints were meant to lure him in, they worked. Reno couldn't help asking, "Adorable pictures of Hewley? Seriously?"
"Not just Hewley," Veld said. He and Tseng shared a chuckle.
"Sephiroth and Rhapsodos, too?" Reno guessed, struggling with the dissonance. The mind boggled. "Those three Behemoths are adorable? I have got to see this!"
Cissnei said, "You've both seen the pictures, haven't you? What do they look like? Tell us!"
"Oh, no," Veld said. "You'll have to wait until they go public, like the rest of the world."
"Fortunately," said Tseng, "that shouldn't be too long. A few weeks, at most."
"You can't tell us you don't know the exact day and time they'll be released, and exactly where," Cissnei accused, putting her hands on her hips and looking belligerent.
Tseng wore his most enigmatic smile.
Veld broke down and told them, "The most useful of the new photographs will be released to the fan clubs, ostensibly by members, so keep watch on the fan boards and email lists if you want any early peeks."
Tseng added, "PR and Propaganda have infiltrated a great many public organizations in this way. It is the best way to disseminate information and direct the ongoing story."
"But what about the 'adorable ones?'" Cissnei asked. "Those are the pictures we really want to see! I can't imagine Sephiroth and his buddies looking cute or adorable!" She laughed.
Tseng's gaze took in all three of the questioners. He barely repressed a smirk. "One of the many rank and file members of the Keepers of Honor, June Fukuda, will do the honors, so be on the lookout for that name. Ms. Fukuda is also a member of Red Leather and the Silver Elite."
Reno and Cissnei rapidly made notes on their phones.
"One identity is a member of all three clubs? Isn't that suspicious?" asked Cissnei.
Tseng explained, "In reality, it is not uncommon for people to be members of them all. Many want to keep tabs on information and pictures in the other clubs, simply because much information about Sephiroth, Rhapsodos, and Hewley overlaps. The fans are nothing if not focused, and don't want to miss any tidbit that might show up in a different club's newsletters and discussion groups." He tilted his head in thought. "It would be more suspicious if three different people all had managed to obtain those particular photographs at the same time in the same location."
"They know what they're doing; they've done it many times before," said Veld. "The selected photos will be edited to look as though they were candid shots, taken on a lower quality phone at a local park. The June Fukuda account will post them to a few discussion pages, and the rest of the club members will then do all the work for us to spread them just as well as any computer virus, bot, or worm. Those silly obsessives will send the images far and wide in a completely natural fashion."
"That's all?" Reno felt a little disappointed that so far the only PsyOps would be a handful of staged photos with some "adorable" pictures of the three most famous Firsts. He was impatient for the real game to begin, though he supposed for the masterminds—Veld, Tseng, and the PR and Propaganda experts—the real game had begun a while ago.
"It's just the beginning." Veld grinned like a Nibel Wolf in anticipation of a raw, bloody meal. "The professional media outlets are in our sights. Now that you've planted the evidence and SEPNET has been released, we can go after the Mirror with all guns blazing."
"Yeah, but how, exactly? What do we get to do?" Reno couldn't believe it would be that easy. He glanced at his teammates. Rude was as impassive as ever, but Cissnei looked as impatient as Reno felt. "I really want to beat on the editors there."
"No beatings, at least for now. We've already planted leaks in legitimate news sources like The Midgar Times that claim the centerfold was faked and the Mirror's story a big lie. They'll do their research and come to the desired conclusions. As for less than legitimate sources, the Gaia Express story will be the first to go public. Look for it in two days. We can always prod the general media if the coverage isn't quick enough to suit our timetable."
Reno grinned, lifting his mag rod, and opened his mouth.
Veld cut him off before he could speak a word. "No, Reno. Not that kind of prodding. We're going for subtlety, remember?"
Rude said, "I guess I'll be picking up another tabloid on my way to work."
"If you like. For now, you get to go home," Veld repeated. "Tseng and I will be leaving here as soon as we finish up some details."
"Boss..." Reno began.
"Go home, you three. The next few weeks are going to be busy."
I apologize for being so erratic and late. I wanted to get a bigger backlog written, but this will have to do for now. It's a bit rough. Last month my mom broke her leg in a way that required surgery and a joint replacement, and I've been over at her place every day helping out and making sure she does all her PT (she wouldn't if no one nags her). It's been eating up most of my free time and energy, which ultimately means I haven't been writing much of anything (my other ongoing story was started last year, and I've only been posting chapters that were already written. Fortunately, that's the entirety of Part I and a chunk of Part II). This will probably continue for a while longer, so updates will be unreliable for the foreseeable future. Real life, huh?
Next time: The Midgar Insider With Steve Russell and Mindy Monroe!