00001: The Attack

It was already after the lesson. Ando-sensei had just wished us good luck for the exams and all students were about to leave the computer lab, that he called me to him once again.

“I already said that I am not mad anymore.” I came to his desk, placing my bag on it.

“Yeah, I know.” He nodded. “I don’t want to steal your weekend. It will be just a few minutes. Please take a chair.”

I exhaled and grabbed one of the chairs from the now empty table behind me and placed it in front of him. The computer lab was in the uppermost floor of the school building, that stood on a small hill itself. From here you could see the whole town and even the house of my family was visible not far off in the distance. Even though it got really hot in the room during summer, I held a lot of dear memories with this place.

“First: Is there any way that I can make up for your troubles?” He really had some bad conscience.

“No, really! You were kinda right with what you said: It really was fun. I wouldn’t have lasted that long if it would’ve been nothing but torture.” Not the setbacks from the failed attempts, but certainly everything else Ando-sensei taught me to achieve this final goal. I started grinning. “But since you are asking … you have free access to the teacher’s room. I think you promised me the results to the exams. You can still deliver on that.”

He laughed. “I already did, to be honest.”

“How so?”

“Well … I never said that I would give you the results with the file directly. I said that I would give you the access to them. And with saying that, I am not at all suggesting you to do that – but all the teachers save their files in the school’s data center …” He gestured with his hands, emphasizing the hidden meaning behind his words.

My facial expression froze. “It’s pretty weak to lure your own students into committing crimes.”

Ando-sensei held his chest as if my words had pierced right through it. “Argh!”

“Also, you are being a bad role model with lying about the actual target,” I rambled on.

He wreathed in pain, falling onto his knees. “Stop, please!”

“And while I am on it, breaking into systems is not an inherently good thing as well.”

“I give up, I give up, okay?” He rearranged himself on the chair in front of me. “I’ll say it again, I am very sorry.”

I watched, as he bowed down again. Even though I wanted to, I could not really stay mad at him. My gaze wandered to the ground. “But I guess this was not what you wanted to talk about with me originally, right?”

He remained silent for a moment, clenched his hands, gulped hard. “Yes, I uh … just wanted to let you know, that … I will have left this school after the upcoming vacations.”

“What?” I jumped right up. “But …” What about all the things he taught me? Did he not enjoy the time here with my class? And who knows what teacher will follow him … I still had my last year of junior high in front of me.

Ando-sensei directed me to sit down again with a calming hand gesture. “It wasn’t an easy decision for me either, but it is … safer that way.”

“Safer?” What was he talking about? Why did he loose not even a single word towards the class?

He nodded. “I won’t go into details. The less you know the better. I just wanted to use this last chance to … um, let you know, you are really exceptional. I mean Yamata no Orochi isn’t by far my safest security software and it surely isn’t aged well, but at its peak … you know. I just want to say, that exploiting it really is a huge accomplishment, especially for your young age. You surely are planning to work in this field, aren’t you?”

“I … uh, to be honest, I haven’t thought much about that.” It made sense, to say the least. The demand for IT experts was on a steep rise with no end in sight – especially for IT security. Governments being hacked, information wars, blackmail trojans: The list of concerns for possible cyber-attacks was sheer endless. It would most likely be a job with future, but it was nothing that I had thought about by now.

Ando-sensei forced a smile. “I understand. Well, I think it would be a waste if you wouldn’t work in IT later. And maybe it makes sense for you to attend a special senior high school that provides you proper preparation for a study in that field. In that case: You can follow me if you’d like.” He handed me a small business card. There was the logo of a school. It assembled black shapes of three blocks towering into the sky. Well … it could be three mainframe servers as well – big all-in-one servers with a whole lot of processing power. Ineigaikan International Academy for IT and Data Security stood underneath it. The back was empty.

“It is a senior high school in Yokohama.”

I stared at the card in my hands as if it could tell me all the answers. I never even thought about the option of changing the school after junior high. My school consisted of a junior and senior high school in one. Moving from the former to the latter was considered standard and the best way to avoid new entrance exams. Nonetheless it certainly was a possibility to consider changing the school. Yokohama was about two hours of bus rides away from my hometown Kisarazu in Chiba prefecture. It was reachable, but I would most certainly need to move into a dormitory. All the points raced through my mind.

“You don’t have to take the decision now. You should just know that this is the most renowned school in Japan for IT security and one of the biggest names worldwide as well. Many students from the US and Europe even move here. It could be a chance. Though you should keep good care for this card. It acts as a sort of recommendation letter, so you won’t get in without it.”

Ando-sensei was just taking a breath for continuing his sentence when a loud beeping came from the speakers of his laptop beside him. We both looked at the screen. There was a message that had popped up in the center. I could not read it from my angle, but Ando-sensei’s face grew serious. His eyes darted over the text.

Without a word he instantly unplugged the network cable from the device and pulled the keyboard of the teacher’s computer towards him. “Someone just accessed my protected files.”

I noticed a slight gasp leaving my throat. Someone … accessed, as in … hacked? A sudden adrenaline shock shot through my body like a lightning strike in slow motion. I grew warm. Was this actually happening right now? Someone had broken into his computer. I sat there, unable to move. All my muscles tensed. I never experienced something like this – never expected it even though I was very aware of what was possible.

Apart from the serious expression on Ando-sensei’s face, he seemed to be unshaken by the event. He had opened a system console window and started to type in a speed that made me feel dizzy.

“Protected files?” I asked and noticed my throat had gone dry. There was not just a hint of concern in my voice.

“The access was directed towards my private key container. I think they were trying to get the master keys for my security software.” He didn’t even look down or flinch, his hands still racing over the keys. That is, why he unplugged the network cable. No network connection, no data transmission. How could he stay so calm?

“You are storing master keys on your laptop?”

“No! But I guess that they don’t know that.”

I could almost feel my heart rate increasing. I tried to follow the commands he was hammering into the machine but failed miserably. It looked like he was skimming through some logs from the networking devices installed in the school. A list of local IP addresses occurred on the screen. Those addresses were like the unique identifier of a device inside a network, the way through which computers addressed their data packets to one another. It seemed like he was trying to find the device which started the attack. It took him around a second to examine the list and then he went on. “And what are you doing right now?” I asked.

“The attacker came through the same remote management port that you just used. But external requests like those are normally blocked by the school’s firewall.”

“You mean …?” The attacker must be inside the building. My hands clenched to fists. My chest tightened. It got hard to breath. Why was my body reacting like this?

He nodded. “It certainly is an option. He could have also hijacked a server in the data center and directed his attack from there, but that is what I just want to find out.” Finally, a list was printed on the screen line by line. Ando-sensei’s hands slowly left the keyboard. He pointed at an IP address on the screen. It took him not even a full minute to locate the source of the malicious requests! What kind of machine was he?

“That is a local address from the IP address pool of the school’s Wi-Fi in the cafeteria. He pulled this little stunt in only three minutes. Whoever this was, knows exactly what he is doing, and he is really fast.” Ando-sensei swallowed.

The cafeteria! The attacker was here in this building, in the cafeteria! A second passed. Someone … had to capture him … and turn him over to the police. It was a strange moment, contradicting the fear inside my chest. As if it was a reflex my tensed muscles loosened. My body could not help but follow the orders from the most primal part of my brain as if it was nothing but a helpless puppet at a string. Before Ando-sensei was able to even think about another word, I already found myself sprinting through the door.

I cannot remember what I was thinking at that time – if I was thinking at all. I should have been terrified by the invisible power that I did not know the dimensions of. Did the attacker take precautions? Was he aware, that we found him? Was he alone? My mind had gone blank, and I just wanted to capture the person that was responsible for this.

I ran as fast as I could through the empty halls. Classes were already over, and everyone was at their club room or on the way home. I ran down the stairs, around the corner and along the endless corridors. When I reached the cafeteria’s entry, I almost bumped into the attacker. I was a bit taken aback by the clichéd look that resembled hackers the way they were often portrayed in movies: Dark Hoodie with the hood pulled so deep down that you could not recognize the face, blue jeans and a dark backpack. Suddenly I wondered more about how he had gotten into the school unnoticed without a uniform.

He was just about to walk through the door and tensed as he saw me sprinting towards him. From the physique he could not be much older than me. I jumped right at him to throw him to the ground. Up until then he hadn’t moved a muscle, but with a speed that I did not remotely expect he evaded me and dodged right around me. I crashed into the door and looked after him, as he ran off.

“Hey you! WAIT!” I screamed and jumped to my feet again.

I was right behind him, noticing his backpack. He must have been in a hurry and had only thrown one strap over his shoulder. I gave my all, inched closer and closer and when I was able to get him, I jumped and grabbed him, throwing him to the ground. We crashed down pretty hard, and his backpack fell off, sliding across the floor a few meters. Before he was able to move, I grabbed his arm and pulled it behind his back.

“Ahh, what are you? A fucking rugby captain?”

I turned him around underneath me, while still pressing him to the ground with my body weight. Under the hood I looked into two big blue eyes, embedded in a delicate face. I startled, pulling down the hood and revealing jet black and shoulder long hair.

“YOU ARE A GIRL?!” I shouted, still out of my breath. That is why her chest felt so … I shifted my arm a bit to the side to not touch her in an indecent way.