it.
But Watson did have a very practical solution for the IC regarding the problem of a compromised IoT—get rid of every device and start over with certified equipment protected by IoT security protocols. It was an expensive solution, but far cheaper than the cost of a compromised intelligence community.
Foley agreed, and under her leadership, closed-door congressional budget committees were dragged across the finish line and the costly cleanup process nearly completed.
In short, it was impossible for Watson’s IoT worm attack to succeed.
Or was it?
“‘Bulletproofed’ is exactly what I’m talking about,” Watson said. “Foley and her people think that the IoT problem is solved now. That means they’re not looking in that direction, so that’s where I want to hit them.”
“How? Every federal vendor is registered and must pass through their biometric security system. It isn’t possible unless—oh, snap.” Fung grinned. “Our guy will use the PassPrint device to get past security.”
“Exactly. And with the compromised printer in place, we can count on Mr. Hilton to hand-deliver our worm into their system.”
“After it’s in his computer, the worm could go anywhere in the building, and, hell, after that, the entire IC. God, I love it.”
He really did. The spy stuff gave him a real boner. It was why he loved this job. Better still, Watson clearly wasn’t sniffing him out for anything suspicious. It was like she was describing the tantric sex the two of them were going to have that night without her realizing he was already sleeping with her boyfriend.
Awesome.
Watson added, “I know it’s a long shot and there are a lot of moving parts, but if we can pull this off, we’ll nail that new multiyear contract with the Feds we’ve been angling for.”
“This is so very John le Carré of you. I’m impressed.”
“Thank you.”
Fung rose. “I’ll get right on it.” He turned to leave, eager to jump into a project that he could get excited about and dodging a bullet all at the same time.
“Oh, wait,” Watson said. “There’s just one more thing.”
Fung turned around, grinning. “Yes?”
“I was lying in bed last night and it suddenly occurred to me that there’s an issue we never got resolved. I came in early this morning and looked at my notes and I don’t see a conclusion.”
“What issue is that?”
“We talked about an exploit that we thought might have existed in the CIA comms terminal at the NRO.” Watson frowned. “If someone broke into that terminal, they would have eyes on every piece of secured intel throughout the IC. It would be another disaster.”
By “another disaster,” Watson was referring to the breach several years prior of the CIA’s Internet-based secure comms program in Iran. It had been compromised by a double agent and, of all things, a simple Google search. A similar breach occurred in the same system deployed in China. Agents, assets, and networks were rolled up in both countries before anyone knew what had happened, putting all global clandestine operations at risk. A number of invaluable in-country assets were either imprisoned or killed as a result, undoing decades of fieldcraft.
The Feds abandoned the flawed Internet-based system and instead put laser focus on securing all IC communications behind the impenetrable IC Cloud.
If that system were subsequently breached?
“Yeah, a disaster for sure,” Fung echoed, his mind racing as fast as his heart.
But panic was the mind killer, and his mind was his best weapon. He took a deep breath through his nose, willing his heartbeat to slow.
Think, damn it!
Does she know? Is she just fishing? Testing my response? Trying to get me to confess?
No. If she knew anything for sure, I’d already be in handcuffs. Hanlon’s razor applies here, or Occam’s.
After all, she was the one who pointed out the flaw to me—it’s how I found it in the first place, and exploited it. She raised it before, and now she wants to close the books on it, that’s all.
“Oh, that’s right. I remember now. We thought there was a problem in the code that would have allowed an external machine to read into the mirroring function. I double-checked it. There wasn’t a problem. The security protocol was just in a different part of the script.”
“Did you test it?”
“Yes.”
“How? You can’t access the NRO machine remotely. Did you go out to Virginia?”
“No. I was too under the gun around here for that. I just uploaded the code into one of our simulators here on premises and tried to break into it from my workstation. Couldn’t do it.”
“You think that’s good