The Rootkit Gambit
Rootkits are among the most malicious collections of computer viruses. They are a set of utilities that grant administrator-level access to a single computer or an entire network of computers. The term "collection" is used because they are rarely deployed alone; multiple malicious codes are typically installed and executed simultaneously. At their core, they hide themselves, install backdoors or Trojans, enable remote access, and conceal or erase traces of these activities from within. They also provide integrated functions for illegal hacking, such as privilege escalation. Unlike ordinary viruses, they infiltrate with extreme stealth, so users often remain unaware of their presence—especially when installed at the kernel level. At that point, reinstalling the operating system becomes the only reliable solution rather than attempting removal.
"What if I embed it directly into the firmware?" Yoo Jae-won took the idea one step further, considering hardware-level integration from the start. In that case, detection would be nearly impossible, and removal would require hardware replacement or specialized equipment. Once a rootkit is installed, its applications become limitless. It could breach the Android operating system, which had boasted near-perfect security during the second Security Challenge. By allowing unauthorized access, an attacker who planted the rootkit could gain complete control through the backdoor. Passwords, critical files, even mundane search histories—everything stored on the computer would fall into the attacker's hands.
"Not bad at all." The risk was minimal, yet the potential gains were enormous. Yoo Jae-won was confident that even North Korean specialists—or America's top security experts—would find it impossible to detect a rootkit he had deliberately hidden in hardware firmware. There was only one risk: the North Korean leadership, after receiving the New Egg 2 as a gift, might simply store the computers in a warehouse without ever using them. If the machines remained unused, the rootkit would be worthless. Still, he doubted that would happen. North Korea's economy was accelerating toward collapse following Russia's rapid decline. Until the 1960s, it had possessed enough economic strength to compete with South Korea, but it had been on a steady downward trajectory ever since. Systemic contradictions, rampant corruption, and Russia's collapse had been the decisive factors. Even the conciliatory stance North Korea had shown during the late Roh administration stemmed from economic desperation. In such circumstances, purchasing luxury goods was already burdensome. Moreover, these were cutting-edge computer products; even if the Kim family did not use them personally, they would likely distribute them to places that needed computers. Once those machines connected to the internet, North Korea's most sensitive data would open up to Yoo Jae-won.
Of course, this prediction was heavily colored by Yoo Jae-won's own common sense and optimistic hopes. In a country as unpredictable as North Korea, events could easily defy expectations. "Still, it's low risk, high return, isn't it?" There was no reason to hesitate. He immediately pulled up the New Egg 2 design schematics on his computer and began searching for a suitable place to embed the rootkit. He felt no pang of conscience about planting malicious code inside a gift of friendship. From the beginning, his trust in North Korea and its ruling clique had been zero. A nation that casually discarded international agreements like flipping a palm could never be trusted. Furthermore, North Korea was a country that committed crimes at the state level—kidnappings were routine, terrorism standard procedure. A clear example was the 1987 bombing of Korean Air Flight 858, carried out a year before the Seoul Olympics—a state-sponsored crime blending kidnapping and terrorism. The North Korean agents who destroyed the plane had posed as Japanese residents, carrying forged Japanese passports that belonged to people abducted from Japan; even their Japanese-language instructors had been abductees. The best policy was to have nothing to do with such a country, yet South Korea shared a physical border with it and had once been a single nation, making complete separation impossible. Therefore, while never being deceived by North Korea's duplicity, it was only wise to expand influence whenever opportunities arose. With China still behind its bamboo curtain and Russia in decline, the task would be easier than in the early to mid-21st century.
"The LAN card's firmware ROM would work." After examining the schematics, Yoo Jae-won chose the LAN card. The BIOS had the largest capacity and was simplest, but that also made detection more likely. Moreover, the BIOS installed from the original New Egg onward used flash ROM and was advertised as updatable. In practice, several BIOS updates had already been released for stability and performance improvements. Embedding the rootkit in the BIOS carried a high chance of deletion during updates. Distributing it inside patch files would be suicide; the moment Android patches or BIOS update files appeared online, competitors and hackers would dissect them line by line. Even if the code were obfuscated, eventual discovery could still come back to haunt Yoo Jae-won or ID Group. A LAN card firmware ROM posed no such problem. The only complication was that the chip itself would need replacement—after extracting the original ROM, the rootkit-loaded ROM had to be attached in its place. Since the New Egg 2 integrated the LAN card directly onto the board, the entire motherboard would have to be swapped.
"So I tell TG in Korea to prepare a special edition without the board, modify the New Egg 2 board here, bring it in, and assemble it?" Doing this openly would be disastrous. North Korea had eyes and ears—spies. They were most active in South Korea, but that did not mean they were absent from the United States. Given that Jeon Myeong-heon had mentioned the Kim family taking an interest in Yoo Jae-won, operatives might already be active nearby. "Difficult, but not impossible." Smuggling a single computer motherboard into South Korea was trivial for ID Group. Inserting it into a special-edition unit at TG's factory would also be straightforward. "Good. The plan is set." It was perfect. All that remained was to finish the rootkit and install it cleanly into the special edition. Yoo Jae-won began programming, instantly immersing himself in the world of code. Driven by the single-minded goal of creating a flawless rootkit, he soon entered a state of flow where even that thought faded, his speed accelerating further.
November arrived. The hopeful year of 1993 now had fewer than sixty days remaining. ID Group had begun its year-end closing procedures, with each division president reviewing whether the targets set at the beginning of the year had been met and identifying any shortfalls. The metrics were not simple revenue quotas; they were more complex. For Nextcomcast, the priority was how many new subscribers had been acquired, followed by how much fiber-optic cable had been laid. For the Android operating system or ID Office, the focus was whether promised features and conveniences had actually been implemented. Everyone was busy addressing remaining gaps before the December annual settlement, yet Yoo Jae-won's attention was not on internal company matters. He had never considered year-end accounting particularly important anyway. He personally oversaw all major decisions across his businesses, and even minor issues reached him daily through reports, so he already knew most of what was happening. Through this system, he remained highly satisfied. ID Group's major projects for 1993 had already achieved their goals, and he was pleased with the group's cash-flow position. Some Korean media outlets criticized the company for building two lavish headquarters buildings and purchasing property in expensive Manhattan without focusing on technology development. They also complained that the funds came from bank loans rather than internal capital. They understood only half the story. ID Group's internal cash flow alone could already cover the cost of constructing the buildings. After calculating taxes and financing expenses, borrowing from banks had simply proven more advantageous. Moreover, no one had yet mentioned that Android Corporation was scheduled to go public in 1994. The media avoided the topic, knowing full well the explosive impact such a listing would have.
Above all else, what Yoo Jae-won was currently prioritizing most was Jeon Myeong-heon's historic cattle drive to North Korea. D-Day was now only days away. The cattle drive was not merely of interest to Yoo Jae-won; the entire Korean public was watching with intense attention. News reports covered it daily. Even footage of cargo trucks—fresh off the production line at Mirae Motors—being fitted with covers to transport cattle had appeared on television. Naturally, the cattle grazing at the Saemangeum ranch also received heavy coverage. Many viewers learned for the first time that tens of thousands of cattle were being raised on pasture in South Korea. Because it was impossible to transport all ten thousand head at once, Jeon Myeong-heon's visit would be divided into four separate trips. Five hundred cargo trucks had been prepared, each capable of carrying five cattle, meaning 2,500 head would be moved per trip. Whether Jeon Myeong-heon would participate in every crossing would be decided after the first trip. The delay in the departure date was reportedly due to the sheer number of cattle; North Korea had scrambled to build enough barns, but material shortages had prevented them from finishing on time. They had even mobilized labor to gather grass for the cattle to graze on during winter. There had been a real possibility that the cattle would be delivered only for North Koreans to curse them, yet surprisingly, public sentiment in the North was not negative. Although Jeon Myeong-heon was South Korean, he had originally come from the North. The idea of a successful man returning to his homeland generated considerable goodwill. The enormous number of cattle also raised hopes of tasting beef again after a long time, and expectations were high that the animals would make next year's farming work easier. In reality, North Korea intended to use the cattle Jeon Myeong-heon provided for agricultural labor rather than slaughtering them for meat. Consequently, the communal pastures being established across the North were concentrated in the plains regions.
"Chief of Staff Choi, it's been a while. I'm even happier to see you now!" Because everyone's attention was consumed by the cattle drive, almost no media outlets paid attention to Yoo Jae-won's sudden return to Korea. "You must be tired after such a long flight. Are you feeling all right?" "I'm still young enough to be full of energy. I slept well on the plane, so don't worry." Furthermore, Choi Kang-wook and the security team had been waiting at the VIP arrival gate and immediately joined Yoo Jae-won, providing ironclad protection. "That's a relief. Shall we head to Dogok-dong as you mentioned before?" "Yes, let's go there first!" As the group chairman, Yoo Jae-won had never once visited the land where the group's headquarters would be built. So, upon arrival, he decided to stop there first, then proceed to the Seoul office for a status report before meeting with TG's President Lee Yong-kwon to handle an important matter.
"It's larger than I expected." The Dogok-dong headquarters site, when they arrived shortly afterward, was far more expansive than Yoo Jae-won had imagined. He had originally acquired the land with the intention of sending a certain individual—who had squandered South Korea's potential in the early 21st century for personal gain—to prison. Under normal circumstances, that man would have diverted poorly managed parcels from Mirae Construction's holdings in Seoul. When land prices in Seoul later skyrocketed, he would have sold them to expand his political influence and wealth. But now Yoo Jae-won had exposed the diversion by mentioning the Dogok-dong land, and with Jeon Myeong-heon's fury, Mirae Construction had immediately filed charges. The man was currently serving a twelve-year sentence. Upon investigation, it turned out he had embezzled far more than just the Dogok-dong property. He had also concealed massive losses in the overseas construction division, resulting in additional charges. He had appealed all the way to the Supreme Court, but the high court's verdict was upheld, and the twelve-year sentence stood. In any case, the Dogok-dong land had never seemed particularly large in Yoo Jae-won's mind. He had assumed he would need to purchase surrounding parcels as well to build the headquarters, yet the Korean branch had never made such a request, which had struck him as odd. Other matters had pushed the issue from his thoughts until now. Seeing the site in person finally explained why no additional purchases had been requested. 'This is the land where Hills Apartment was supposed to be built.' The Dogok Park Hills Apartment was an enormously famous complex. Mirae Construction had been the first to successfully brand an apartment line. As the saying went that South Korea's other name was the Apartment Republic, apartments sprang up everywhere, creating a need for premium apartments to differentiate themselves from ordinary ones. Major construction companies under chaebols launched their own brands one after another. Dogok Hills Apartment had been the first successful example of such a premium brand. Now that land had come into ID Group's possession for its headquarters building. Yoo Jae-won had once been pleased at having bought it cheaply; now he realized it had been an absurd bargain.
"Seoul City is expected to grant approval soon. Not just an ordinary building, but a landmark-class structure." "Oh? Is that so?" Seoul imposed height restrictions on buildings because the country remained divided and technically still at war; the limits were meant to prepare for potential conflict. As a result, even when developers wanted to construct high-rises, permits were not easily obtained. In Yoo Jae-won's case, however, approval had come smoothly. He suspected considerable unseen consideration had been extended to help him navigate the various regulations, but he had no desire to examine every detail. He moved on to the next topic. "Then we need to decide on the number of floors." He had received several blueprints drawn as simple computer graphics or sketches, but they held little meaning since they had been created without knowing the maximum allowable height. Now that landmark status was on the table, he had far more options. "You'll build it taller than the 63 Building, won't you?" At Choi Kang-wook's question, Yoo Jae-won nodded. Seoul was relatively safe from natural disasters. Even when major earthquakes struck nearby countries, there had been no significant damage. The real problem was human error. As the side effects of rapid growth began to surface, accidents occurred without end. The silver lining was that while natural disasters could not be prevented by human power, human-caused accidents could. At the same time, as his own influence grew, he could mete out punishments on an entirely different scale than in his previous life to those responsible. "Yes. Of course we should." Yoo Jae-won answered immediately. "I'm thinking of making it 101 stories." Kim Dae-seok, who had been listening while holding a notebook nearby, could not help but be impressed. The 63 Building was already enormous; building one thirty-eight stories taller was staggering. And the project was already underway. Later, when skyscraper competitions intensified, even a 101-story building might be quickly surpassed, but once the ID Global Headquarters Building was completed, it would enjoy the distinction of being Asia's tallest building for some time.
Afterward, Yoo Jae-won visited the Seoul branch office to receive reports on pending matters. Issues that had been delayed—including the Daejeon Expo, the ID Display factory, the Yeoju packaging plant, and the recently launched Gigastudy—poured in all at once. In particular, shaking hands with the three top instructors recruited for Gigastudy and formally signing their contracts could not be overlooked. Once he had finished all of ID Group's business, Yoo Jae-won finally headed to meet TG's President Lee Yong-kwon. Inside the car carrying him to the meeting was the HPC motherboard he had cherished since bringing it from America.