Ransomware, Part 2
Sid went into the server room with Blackwood employees and specialists from the investigative agencies, examined the encrypted servers, and started looking for a way to crack them.
At first, everyone wore the same skeptical expression.
They probably wondered how much help a kid that young could possibly be. But before long, the atmosphere changed.
The investigators who had been holding their heads high were soon bent over, listening to every word Sid said.
I called David.
David: "If this goes wrong, we're really going to get arrested for stock manipulation."
Me: "If it goes well, then it isn't stock manipulation, is it?"
David: "To be honest, I don't trust CEO Lucas as much as I trust you, Boss."
Me: "Oh, really?"
David: "But I do trust your judgment when you say you trust CEO Lucas."
Me: "Actually, there's something else I need you to do."
David: "You're already thinking about after it's all over?"
Me: "Yes. It's a good chance to secure a high-value customer."
When the call ended, I headed for the chairman's office.
Chairman Taylor was sitting there with a worn-out expression.
"Are you all right?"
"Do I look all right?"
"You do look pretty exhausted."
He shook his head.
"I've been through plenty of crises, but this one is the worst yet. I'll be lucky if the shareholders don't shoot me."
With the stock cut in half, the shareholders' fury had to be off the charts. If tomorrow had been the annual meeting, he would have been out on his ass.
I sat on the sofa and drank the coffee the secretary had brought in.
Watching me, Chairman Taylor said, "Why are you so calm? If this goes badly, things won't exactly be easy on your side either."
Since I'd already gotten my cut once, I wasn't going to lose money no matter what happened.
But if I'd stepped in this confidently and still failed to solve it, it would stain the reputations of Continue Capital and Snow Crash.
"If I look anxious too, wouldn't that only make you more uneasy?"
"I can't tell whether you're confident or just fearless."
"Both."
Even I sometimes thought that was strange.
Was it confidence born of knowing the future? Or had I simply lost my fear because I had died once already?
Chairman Taylor gave a dry laugh.
"I wish my son would learn a thing or two from you. You're about the same age, but that boy still hasn't got a lick of sense."
He probably had around a hundred million dollars sitting at home. Did he really need to grow up?
Still, no matter how rich a man was, his worries about his children were probably all the same.
Chairman Taylor opened a drawer and pulled something out.
"Are you smoking?"
At my question, he raised the thing in his hand.
"Not a cigarette. It's weed. Want one?"
"...I'll pass."
Unlike the United States, where weed was legal, in Korea it was still an outright drug.
I already had too many marks against me; if word got out that I'd used weed, I might be arrested the moment I got back home.
He lit it.
A harsh, stale smell spread through the room. It was far stronger than cigarette smoke.
Was it really all right to smoke that in the office?
With the weed between his lips, Chairman Taylor said, "My days here are numbered, then."
"What do you mean?"
"Can I keep my seat after the stock has fallen this far?"
Unlike Korean chaebol companies, which could cling to power even after a stock collapse, American companies got torn apart as soon as their performance turned bad.
"Think positively. Crises are always overcome eventually, aren't they?"
"Who said that?"
"You did."
"I did?"
"Yes. You said it when you increased investment while the economy was in recession during the financial crisis."
It sounded obvious now, but the mood back then had been nothing like this. Everyone was saying the world economy was finished.
When rival firms were cutting back, how many managers had the nerve to make massive investments?
"I think this could turn into a blessing in disguise."
"How so?"
"What is Blackwood's top priority?"
"The customer."
"Exactly. So this is the perfect chance to hammer that point home."
"How?"
Did I really have to spell it out line by line?
Still, the more I pushed the stock up, the more I stood to gain as well, so I explained it anyway.
"As you know, Great Net has been designated a terrorist organization. In other words, they're not just a criminal group — they're a force trying to overthrow the state."
"So?"
"Then Blackwood says it will never negotiate with terrorists. Threatening national security is the same as threatening customer safety."
Compared with bombs exploding in front of your eyes, cyberterrorism didn't always feel like an immediate threat.
So this was the chance to remind the public that cyberterror was still terror, and to declare that Blackwood would fight back.
"Since 9/11, Americans have had nothing but disgust for terrorists, haven't they? If you say you're refusing to negotiate to protect the country, who's going to argue with that?"
Chairman Taylor leaned forward.
"You're telling me to do patriotic marketing?"
"Yes. Patriotism is always a keyword that sells."
He nodded at that.
"In a time like this, when everyone is pushing their own country first, it's even more necessary."
"Go one step further and say this: yes, we could pay the money and unlock the servers, but if we do, there's a high risk the data will be leaked. So Blackwood would rather go under than let even a single customer's personal information escape. A company that protects its customers even at the worst possible moment, rather than its own survival — don't you think customers would trust that company even more?"
Plenty of companies claimed to put customers first. How many of them actually lived up to it?
After staring blankly for a moment, Chairman Taylor slowly nodded.
"Ahem. That's not a bad idea."
"Not at all."
It wasn't even my idea; he had said all of it himself in the first place. So there was no reason for him to thank me.
He let out another tired breath. "Still, I don't know whether my neck will still be attached by then."
"Then let's implement it right now and pull the stock back up before it falls any further."
"What?"
"Tell the press exactly what you just said."
Chairman Taylor looked startled. "And if we still can't solve it ourselves? Then we'd end up paying the terrorist group anyway, wouldn't we?"
"We'd pay the money ourselves."
"Even so, what will people think? What happens to my dignity?"
It would be pretty humiliating to boast that there would be no negotiation with terrorists and then hand over money a few days later while asking for a decryption key.
"By the time it comes to that, you'll already have stepped aside. Then you won't have to break your own word. Your successor can handle the negotiations, and Snow Crash will take all the blame."
If things went as planned, it would be a blessing in disguise. If not, he could hand in his resignation before he got fired. Either way, there was nothing for him to lose.
I looked at Chairman Taylor and asked, "How would you like to handle it?"
[Excerpt] Three days have passed since the 5,300 hotels under the Blackwood umbrella were forced to shut down because of ransomware. With no way to know when the encrypted servers will be unlocked, the market remains deeply skeptical.
Some experts have even warned that this incident could bring Blackwood down, and the stock has continued to fall.
The man who led the initial decline and issued the sell recommendation was David Lockhart, CEO of Continue Capital.
When asked whether there was more downside ahead, Lockhart surprisingly offered the exact opposite view.
Lockhart said that Snow Crash was working with the FBI and the NSA to resolve the Great Net ransomware attack on Blackwood, and that fortunately no data leak had been confirmed. He added that he was confident the servers would be restored and business would return to normal within three days.
When asked for his investment view, he strongly recommended buying, saying, "Right now is the best chance you'll ever get to buy Blackwood International stock this cheaply. An opportunity like this won't come again in the next ten years. Continue Capital has already finished buying. If we had had more money, we would have bought more."
The moment that report came out, the internet exploded.
The article's impact was enormous.
Who would have expected the very man who had driven the collapse to reverse his position so abruptly? It was almost unprecedented.
[Excerpt] In most ransomware cases, the problem is resolved by paying the criminal group and receiving the decryption key in return.
But Blackwood is currently working with Snow Crash and the investigative authorities to solve the ransomware attack directly.
When asked why he would not negotiate, Chairman Peter Taylor said:
"Great Net is a terrorist group that threatens national security. Handing money to an organization like that endangers American security and, beyond that, the safety of our customers. Therefore, Blackwood will never negotiate with terrorists."
The longer the servers remained locked, the longer the shutdown would last, and the greater the risk of data corruption would become.
But Chairman Taylor's position was unwavering.
"As we saw in the previous incident, customer information can leak during the decryption process. Blackwood's greatest asset is not its hotel buildings or its data — it is its customers. Even if the hotels collapse and the data disappears, we can rise again as long as we have our customers. But if we lose our customers' trust, that is the end. Our policy is that we would rather let the company fail than let a single customer's information leak."
Until then, most of the talk about Peter Taylor had been overwhelmingly negative.
But once the article went out, the mood flipped.
The effect of the article was unmistakable.
The stock, which had fallen below $120 after the incident, shot up by nearly 60 percent in no time at all.
Even so, analysts remained split over where it would go from there.
The hedge funds that had shorted the stock following Continue Capital were just as confused. Those who had piled in late looked at their losses and exploded with rage.
"What the hell are these bastards?"
"Damn it! They told us to sell, so we sold, and now they're stabbing us in the back like this?"
"So what now? Buy? Sell?"
"Ah, shit! What the hell are we supposed to do?"
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