AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“What’s the maybe?”
Todd glanced at Zane and then back at Nate. “We think that Alisa may have had something to do with it.”
“What? How? No. I don’t believe that.” Nate shook his head. Zane still stared down at the table.
“I didn’t want to believe it either,” Zane said. “But it’s the most likely way and it seems like they got in through her.”
The room grew quiet for a moment. They were used to frequently working alongside each other in silence, their brains moving ahead of their mouths. “Let’s prove that. Or disprove it. Because I really like Alisa. She’s a genius with marketing and branding and I really don’t see her as someone who would let a hacker in. Not on purpose. Okay, so what do we do? What’s the next step?”
“We don’t have a lot of users, so it’s less of a data breach. We need to let people know, but that shouldn’t be a big deal. It won’t impact trust, at least not publicly yet since the beta pool is small. The biggest thing, honestly, is getting scooped. If someone comes out with the same app tomorrow or this weekend and gets ahead of our launch, that matters. We’ll lose our edge. No one will want to buy First Sight if there’s another one out there already up and running.”
“Yeah, but look at Meerkat and Periscope. Remember them?” Nate got up, knowing that he needed to move. He paced the room behind the table.
“Barely. Was Periscope that live video thing from Twitter?” Zane asked. “I don’t even know if it’s still around. I’ve never heard of Meerkat.”
“Meerkat came first, followed by Periscope. Meerkat didn’t last. Periscope had better functionality and UX. It kept people going. Meerkat was almost too soon for its time.”
“And then every app and platform started utilizing live video and they both essentially died,” Todd said.
“My point,” Nate said, “is that we don’t have to be first. We just have to be better. Right? And if they don’t have the bot functionality or our matching algorithm, they can’t really run the platform. Not well. The bots are what handle all the important tech pieces.”
“But they may just be hacking for fun. They might be trying to mess things up, just for fun. You never know with hackers. There isn’t always a reasons. Sometimes they just play,” Zane said.
“We can’t do what ifs,” Nate said. “Let’s make a plan. First of all: Alisa. What do we do there?”
Nate and Todd both looked at Zane. He slapped a palm on the table. “You know I’m interested in her. That shouldn’t matter now. If she did this, she’s out.”
“But if we ask her and she didn’t do it, we may lose her as an employee and you’d likely also lose any chance you had,” Todd said. “You really think she had anything to do with this?”
“I don’t know,” Zane said. “I don’t see how she could. But I trust you two implicitly. She’s new to the team. Did we do a full background? I don’t think we did. How does this work? Do we just call her and ask? Or can we get into her system and see if there was a back door left open or something?”
“Working on the second of those,” Todd said.
“Is the app even online still?” Zane asked. “I didn’t even look.”
Nate pulled out his phone and tried to open the app. Sewzy had been quiet the last day or so. He hadn’t thought much of it, mostly because he was still having the internal struggle over his deception. Maybe she was quiet because she couldn’t get to him.
The app opened, but to a black screen instead of their logo. Frowning, he stared at his phone. “Guys, you should see this?”
In white block letters, “LOADING…” appeared on the screen. This was not a part of their design. Suddenly a broken heart replaced the words. New letters appeared on top of the heart and Todd cursed under his breath. Nate’s stomach tightened to the point that he bent over, breathing between his knees.
The message was in large black type with a sad-face emoji:
It’s not you, it’s me.
The hack had gone deeper than they thought. The app was fully compromised.
* * *
An hour later, the guys had a list of things to do on the dry erase board. Alisa had joined them, and Nate awkwardly asked her if she had anything to do with a breach. Though it was Nate who asked, her anger focused on Zane. After shouting at him—in both English and Korean—she settled down. Todd found the vulnerability and it had nothing to do with her. Nate apologized profusely and wished they had waited a bit more, but at least she wasn’t leaving. She dug in at her computer, not understanding all the tech stuff, but doing whatever they asked of her.
They tightened up security and blocking up holes that had given access, plus making sure the hackers hadn’t left any trace inside. Alisa found someone outside who specialized in this kind of hack who would work with them. The last thing they wanted was a Trojan horse or virus left behind. Nate needed to rework the timeline and the promotional options. They had to consider the worst-case: the app wouldn’t be operational at the Tech Start Conference.
“It had been going on for some time,” Todd said. He put his hands over his eyes and leaned back in his chair. “I wish I’d looked deeper into the discrepancy. I’d noticed for a while, but it didn’t seem to be anything of this sort or scale. I just thought I was seeing a broken piece of code somewhere. A small glitch.”
“You couldn’t have known,” Zane said. “None of us even noticed anything at all. This was a clean, professional job.”
Nate hadn’t spoken in ten minutes. He kept waiting to really freak out. But so far, he wasn’t. He felt utterly calm. Anxiety was down there. He could feel its rumble. But the part of him that loved a good problem didn’t mind the work. So long as they could salvage enough of something to present at Tech Start.
