I'm writing a segment that involves a character breaking into a secure corporate server room while another character is creating a distraction.
Basically, what I'm asking for is what would a competent techie bring into a secure server room with the intent of stealing valuable data as well as fucking with as much shit as possible in a relatively brief (hour-ish) time period? That they could carry, that is.
Assuming infinite funds, with the only limiter being the assumption that watch-lists are in place for military-grade hardware.
I'm assuming that this is half-troll half-not. Thinkpads are beefy fuckers so I could see that, but is Gentoo really the thing to go for? I'm not looking to be supremely anal technical stuff, mostly trying to avoid Movie Magic. Someone with a USB cable and some sort of brute-force hacking method could conceivably get in and start doing things?
Logan White
gentoo is the os all real hackers use
Brayden Jenkins
Everything is pretty fucking stupid and generic when you break it down into a sentence. You want me to bore you to tears with every last thing I've done to make it Special Snowflake for you?
Thomas Anderson
>Someone with a USB cable and some sort of brute-force hacking method could conceivably get in and start doing things? >mostly trying to avoid Movie Magic
Grayson Harris
That's why I'm asking, sweetling. :^)
Landon Turner
Yes
Nicholas Sullivan
yes, i do what's your favorite anime btw
Thomas Campbell
Not sure if flattered or if you just want to hear my genuine thoughts and then immediately shit on me without even reading it
Blake Bailey
laptop and spare battery for "muh overclocked hack time" some ide (for you, a colorful hacker version of notepad or textedit) terminal client
supersoaker car battery with cables to shove into servers to make sparks should all fit into a backpack, make it look as tacticool as possible
Logan Flores
i want to know you're favorite anime
Wyatt Ward
also the laptop background picture should be a simple color background with an anime girl on the right side, looking to the left
this part is important
Dylan Flores
You're not on /lit/. Also I need more context to help you.
Daniel Diaz
Arch linux or something like slackerware or similar distro.
Don't fall for the gentoo meme, even for a character in a book.
Nolan Scott
is that rose
Jason Flores
Sure does look like it.
Ayden Martinez
>mfw supersoaker Just for you that's happening. Overall maybe FMA: Brotherhood or Gankutsuou if I'm feeling incredibly gay.. Obviously it changes based on how I'm feeling.
James Morales
Please elaborate on what you want. What I have now is a corporate station with on-site server farm on the lower levels containing its user information. There are terminals down there for staff. The idea is hunting down for specific information while another operation is happening, with additional goal of "just screw ship it up while you're down there."
Aiden Hughes
>server farm any server farm worth its salt will have locking doors and emergency halon fire systems (side note: if you can find halon fire extinguishers, buy them. They last forever and won't fuck up your electronics if something catches fire)
Anyone who gives a shit about data transfer will use ethernet instead of usb
once someone finds what they need, then comes fucking shit up
it's all kinda pointless to go after data anyway because everything will, assuming a competent company, be backed up off-site, so go after hardware. Thus supersoakers and poking things with live wires
Xavier Brown
>physical breaking into a room? >hacking
Dear OP, if you need to know more about how some big "hacking" events gets done, why not read specialized blogs or hear podcasts about security?
That should imbue with the data you need to know how somoe of this stuff gets done in real life.
e.g. remember that friday many services were rendered unavailable? it was a DDoS done with a botnet made of poorly designed chinese DVR's
Those fuckers that DDoS sony's PSN and ms' xbox live on chistmas? a botnet of poorly designed routers
I might imagine some scenarios that need actual physical intrusion, but if you need to create a distraction, something like a DDoS or a ransomware attack will bring the average IT department to its knees and will get some angsty boss' blood pressure to skyrocket
I really appreciate that you are trying to do actual research to do material that feels more "real", but Sup Forums it's not going to bring you with good data for that matter
William Jenkins
Mm. I catch your meaning, thank you. This is the kind of thing I was looking for. And if one wanted to maximise the damage/effort ratio once the information desired had been obtained?
Julian Ortiz
I appreciate what you're saying, but this isn't exactly Stuxnet, either. This is in a narrative that isn't meant to express maximal realism, because explaining lots of social engineering and a thumb drive in the right terminal isn't exciting to read about. This is meant to be a climactic event that happens in a server room, because the server room is where the character has to be.
Dylan Lopez
sounds dumb u should give up because u can't write for shit
Michael Hall
>it's all kinda pointless to go after data anyway because everything will, assuming a competent company, be backed up off-site, so go after hardware Well how about the data leakages from sites, for example adulfriendfinder or the other famous one Madison something? I'm sure they didnt fucked up hardware, but to someone to rob you such user sensitive data could pack a punch to your business credibility
Julian Evans
Well the whole offsite backup thing will mean that they can't do any meaningful damage to the actual data unless they also take down the backup provider
Destroying hardware is literally the only thing that would do lasting financial damage to the company. Causing them to dump halon in a way that prevents its recovery and reuse could be problematic, but would eventually get patched up and refilled with a synthetic alternative
best thing to be disruptive is to also synchronize a virus to do some dumbass fancy screensaver of like a laughing ascii skull or something on employee computers
data leakage is neat, but if they're in the server room anyway it's not as if it would really be separate from finding what information they needed. At that point they could just upload the entire server contents to wherever-the-hell.com and sort through it later. Also see
Jaxon Gonzalez
well, if thats the case, this will be some generic hollywood's view of hacking stuff
Anyway, I might get an idea for the distraction.
Internet of things. A real hot topic that some companies try to push as the next coming of jesus. Turns out that most comanies dont know shit about actual security, so many of those IoT devices are easily hackable.
IoT Home automation. Imagine some fucked up exec pushed to fill a corp's building with such devices like bulbs and thermostats. If you hack those you might create a fuckton of concern and distraction: blinking lights, hot as hell and icy cool as rooms, disabling locks, enabling locks creating mass hysteria on weakly minded personnel
Asher Price
"Portable" computers/lunchbox computers or a GETAC X500 Server/Panasonic Toughbook.
Colton Hernandez
Why announce that you are from a certain board, like you claim it as your identity? Are you a grill too? Weak.
Tyler James
Duly noted, and a very interesting idea for future reference, but this also isn't meant to be the game-over scenario, either. This is a third act gets-good-before-it-gets-awful sort of thing, so a deathblow of that nature isn't really feasible. The distraction is a lot more face-first-fuck-you, since the setting has magic and similar shenanigans in it. The idea is that it's a hard push on what the protag knows is a dummy corporation, with the intention of keeping the lie alive.
And what about sneaky sleeping viruses? I've read about viruses that can change themselves periodically to hide from typical virus scans, and assumed that such things are only in the price range of world governments and similarly fantastical (lol) powers. Could such a thing be possible to sneak in? I believe that it's relatively doable to erase one's tracks if one has access to admin privileges, but I want to be sue.
Christopher Martinez
>Could such a thing be possible to sneak in It wouldn't be at all visually interesting, but yeah, you could. More plot development insurance than anything else, and only useful if the hardware were unmolested. Breaking shit physically and visibly = pink mohawk, slipping in an out unnoticed = mirrored sunglasses, read more cyberpunk fiction
Nolan Perry
>And what about sneaky sleeping viruses? I've read about viruses that can change themselves periodically to hide from typical virus scans, and assumed that such things are only in the price range of world governments and similarly fantastical (lol) powers Really what you're talking about are Zero-day exploits.
Nothing is stopping your average joe hacker from having a Zero-day exploit besides the fact they're nigh impossible to find, and those that are found are generally reported quickly and patched, or kept hidden and sold for vast amounts of money, or kept hidden and used for secret attacks.
Stuxnet being the prime example used 4 Zero-day exploits which was before basically unheard of.
Having a zero-day exploit makes your virus more or less undetectable (or at least a particular function of your virus) because it's an unknown attack vector.
