Chapter 47
Chapter 47
Chapter 047 of the Black-Haired Investor Awakened as a Superhuman
==========
[System Notification
Cleaning RAM Disk Cache… OK
Some log files are corrupted. Restoration attempt…
[ Jet: You said there's no security team? They're too strong! Our defense was completely breached. ]
[ Mika: We're barely holding on. The MySQL syntax error won't go away. I've blocked external IPs, but they'll break through again. They're too strong. We don't have time. Let's decide quickly. ]
[ Shiva: Our entire chat log has been compromised! ]
[ Mika: That's not what's important right now. The situation has definitely changed. It's official. They are. ]
[ Jet: Mika's right. FBI? I don't know. But it's certain that our DB structure is exposed. More than anything, fighting the official is suicide. ]
[ Mika: We have to wipe the server and go into hiding. We agreed to do that on a day like this, Phantom. ]
[ Sword: It's been fun. I hope everyone stays safe. Goodbye. ]
[ Mika: Me too. I love you all. ]
[ Shiva: I said our entire chat log has been compromised!!! ]
[ Jet: So what? ]
[ Mika: Wait. Something's wrong. Everyone stay quiet and don't leave. Shiva. I'm getting scared, tell me it's not true. Tell me it's not. ]
[ Shiva: Sorry. ]
[ Sword: Sorry? No… ]
[ Jet: Damn it. I knew it was you two. If I get caught, you're going down with me. Don't think it'll end with just me getting caught. I'm not dying alone. ]
[ Sword: Jet. Are there any suspicious movements outside? Get out of there first. ]
[ Jet: Where am I supposed to go? This is so frustrating. ]
[ Mika: Tell us exactly. How much did you talk to Phantom about? Phantom, say something too. Why are you so quiet? ]
Why was Phantom quiet?
I had been watching their conversation and finally decided to reveal myself.
Phantom's system was already in my hands.
I typed and pressed enter, and the message was entered under the name of their leader, Phantom.
[ Phantom: Mika, Charlotte Turner. ]
[ Phantom: Jet, Noah Anderson. ]
[ Phantom: Sword, Rusty Barnett. ]
[ Phantom: Shiva, Neha Reddy. ]
[ Mika: Stop it. ]
[ Jet: What are you doing! Do you really want to die? ]
[ Phantom: And Phantom, Jasper Blackwood. ]
The sensation of pressing the keyboard felt heavier than ever.
[ Phantom: Those are all your real names, deserving of life sentences. Listen carefully. If you don't all appear before me in two days, at this time. ]
[ Phantom: If even one person is missing. ]
[ Phantom: All of your personal information will be made public. ]
That was the end.
[ Phantom: I am Hyun-woo Na. ]
* * *
People often think of the Dark Web as.
A forbidden area that should never be touched.
A world teeming with extremely dangerous psycho criminals?
So I thought the process of accessing it would be secretive and require a high level of skill.
I thought similarly until I learned about this world.
But it wasn't.
In reality, it's an open world that anyone can easily access. If you just want to connect, you don't need any complicated technology.
Just install the Tor browser and enter the address.
The Dark Web is a place where minorities gather.
The members of Red Montage, based there, were outsiders of society, which was fortunate for me.
Even if each individual was highly skilled, the fact that it was just a small group of only five members was especially important.
'What if this attacker was an official group?'
We might have been the ones to be defeated in the end.
North Korea's Lazarus.
Russia's APT28 and APT29.
China's APT 41 and Mustang Panda. Official groups like these are incomparable to them in terms of organization.
That's probably true.
Such official groups are military organizations that receive orders from the state.
But there's still something I have to acknowledge.
Red Montage.
Even though it was a small organization of only five people, there was a reason why they were able to gain notoriety comparable to Lazarus.
They were the ones who revived the Ransomware attacks, which were thought to have disappeared, by making them even more powerful.
Some security experts suspected them of being an official organization, not only because they were meticulously hiding themselves.
Their attack tactics were also on a different level than other amateur hacker groups.
What about their weapons?
The Malware that attacked me this time was named '19Z1' among them, and it was only a part of the weapons they possessed.
Originally, these kinds of guys are the ones who enter official groups.
Either they respond to the call of the state, or they have been raised that way since they were young.
Or they may already belong to an official group.
Or else…
* * *
In Phantom's case, it was BAE Systems.
A leading British security company that recognized the growth potential of cyber security early on in the traditional defense industry market.
With a market capitalization of $50 billion, it was a familiar place to me even during my Goldman days.
When it comes to British security stocks, that name comes up first.
「 BAE SYSTEMS
Cyber Security Division
Jasper Blackwood
Junior Security Analyst
6 Carlton Gardens, London SW1Y 5AD, United Kingdom
(071) 555- 9382
As if he were offering a statement containing his confession, he carefully placed his business card on the desk.
From the moment he crossed the threshold of the office, his shoulders were already hunched over.
His gaze never left the floor. His gait was hesitant, like someone dragging shackles.
The reason he offered his business card first seemed to be his own way of expressing complete surrender.
That he would now entrust his fate to me.
"Is that all you have to say?"
"I'm sorry… I'm sorry."
I looked at his business card again.
Neatly printed letters and the company logo.
BAE SYSTEMS. Junior Security Analyst. Jasper Blackwood.
The neat title on the business card and the shrunken figure of this young hacker in front of me didn't match.
He had just become an adult.
When I looked into it, the name Jasper Blackwood was quite well known in the white hacker scene, if not as much as Phantom in the black hacker scene.
He first gained attention at the age of 15 when he won first place at the Cyber Battle UK, a British hacking competition.
In the same year, he was invited to a workshop hosted by the UK's National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC) and began to make his name known in the white hacker scene in earnest.
At the age of 16, he joined the CyberFirst Program, a national talent development program run by the NCSC.
At the age of 17, he won the grand prize at Defcon, an internationally renowned hacking competition, solidifying his reputation in the white hacker scene.
And at the age of 18, he was officially selected for BAE Systems' Talent Program.
He rejected the constant calls from government agencies and decided to pursue a career in a private company.
During the day, he worked diligently at the company.
At night, he transformed into Phantom, the leader of Red Montage and a notorious hacker.
He had been maintaining this double life until now.
"How kind. You're giving this to me to include when I hand you over to the FBI, right?"
When I asked in a cold voice, he quickly raised his head.
His eyes, which had been staring at the floor until just now, wavered again. His eyes were already red.
He seemed to be barely holding back, but he eventually failed.
'How weak.'
He may have been a ghost-like figure of terror in the internet world.
In the real world, he was just a young professional with a lack of social experience.
He couldn't even withstand this much pressure and ended up crying.
"Are you a kid? If you keep crying, I'll hand you over right away."
At my words, he gasped sharply.
I waited for him a little.
Perhaps he was getting used to it, his trembling began to stop.
"...Would it be okay if I crushed the Reed family? I'm confident in that."
That was the first time I felt life in his voice.
I could only scoff.
I ended up bursting into laughter at this young man's absurd audacity.
"Ha! Should I really hand you over..."
"...Yes?"
A puppy doesn't know the fear of a tiger, and this guy is exactly like that.
A guy who couldn't do anything to me, where did he get the idea to take on the Reed family…
* * *
I also learned properly this time.
The Reed family has been responsible for the defense of England for generations.
Even when the regime changed, they were always at the center of British defense under the protection of a powerful royal family.
A traditional aristocratic group rooted in the military, the Reeds.
I was initially perplexed by the fact that they were paying attention to me.
I wondered where the internal information had leaked from.
Or I wondered if the British royal family didn't trust me and had started investigating me.
Because one of the investments I received at the last briefing came from the British royal family.
Even so, it didn't make sense.
The Reed family were people who were good at mobilizing official organizations.
They had powerful official channels, from the British Intelligence Service, the Military Intelligence Service (MI6), to even the royal family's direct investigation agency.
Those are just the great names I know, but if you add the unofficial channels, their influence would probably be beyond imagination.
Intelligence networks, private surveillance organizations.
Even international information sharing networks.
The resources they can access are far more extensive and meticulous than I can imagine.
The fact that the Reed family, with this kind of background, would go to the trouble of hiring an illegal hacker group like Red Montage was questionable no matter how I thought about it.
Then, for now, it means it's not because of the investment I received this time.
A reason why it's burdensome to mobilize the official.
'That must be a private reason within the family.'
Even with this perfectly awakened brain, the exact reason remained a mystery that I couldn't solve.
In the end, there was a lack of information about them.
Nevertheless, what was clear was.
Finding out about that was also not something to entrust to these colt-like guys.
The reason I called these guys here to New York was not for anything else.
The time had come for me to have employees too.
* * *
Unless I clone myself like Multiple Man.
It's impossible for me to perfectly defend against real-time cyber attacks alone.
Nevertheless, there is a big reason why I haven't had a security team until now.
It's the same reason why I haven't used secretaries or office workers.
Outsourcing to security companies often leads to incidents where they leak the client's internal data…
That's right.
I myself had been overlooking the importance of security.
But I realized it even more while breaking through these guys' defense system.
Even a group of only five people is this strong, it's hard to imagine how powerful a properly organized group would be.
And the Reed family had the power to operate such groups.
'And they are now targeting me… so, why?'
This was a different matter from Trump's re-election campaign investigating me.
The Trump re-election campaign's work was a preliminary verification process before inviting me, while this was a hostile attack.
As my silence grew longer, he seemed to be getting anxious again.
His hands, placed on his knees with his head bowed, were trembling slightly.
I quietly watched the scene and spat out.
"Do you know that this is a much bigger problem than you think?"
"That it can lead to a life sentence…"
As he said.
I had countless data that could put them in prison at once.
The same goes for the practical legal evidence that the Ransomware attacks that attacked power plants around the world earlier this year were also their doing.
These guys tried to cash out ten thousand Bitcoins stolen from the Ransomware attacks, but they ended up having all the Bitcoins confiscated by the German government because they used the wrong person at the time.
All the processes at that time were also left in the chat logs.
Besides that, their chat logs were full of illegal activities no matter what time you searched.
I said.
"It might be better to be thrown in jail. The Reed family, if those people set their minds to it, they can make guys like you disappear without a trace. You're involved with those kinds of people."
It was true.
A line that would be said in a thriller movie was coming out of my mouth.
Ha!
Things happened so suddenly.
Suddenly, the Reed family and Red Montage popped out, and my peaceful daily life became a thriller.
Anyway, he was too young to be in charge of the security team.
'He probably doesn't hear a word I'm saying right now.'
He's been sitting deep in the Dark Web and talking to countless heinous criminals, so to put it bluntly, he's in a state of swollen liver.
I could see all the absurd thoughts he was likely to have.
He's not a leader offline, even if he is online.
Charlotte Turner, the woman who used the nickname Mika, would be the most suitable for this job.
At least this female hacker seemed to have a vague sense of the danger of the Reed family. Her skills even seemed a little better.
"You're out."
Before he could beg again without knowing why, I pushed him to one side.
And there, the members of Red Montage were huddled together, awkwardly trying to hide their discomfort even in this oppressive atmosphere.
It couldn't be helped.
They must have had images of each other that they were thinking about online.
But Mika, who was thought to be just a British girl obsessed with K-POP.
She was Charlotte, a plump middle-aged woman.
And Jet, who exchanged cheesy conversations with her as a cyber couple, was a minor, and it was unclear whether he could even actually appear in this place despite my warning.
In addition, Shiva, who was recognized as a reckless action leader, was a frail Indian woman.
Rather, Sword, who was considered a slightly detached and timid type in the team, was a man with a burly physique.
The more I looked at it, the more absurd the combination was.