Chapter 446 What goes around comes around. I can pay it back, but what about you?
Ignoring the secretary's tearful face, he went straight to the supervisor in charge of the program.
The person in charge of the architecture of the food delivery website and payment system, who was transferred from the software park at the time, was named Han Jiajun. He was from Hong Kong and graduated from Yale University with a master's degree in communications engineering.
She was in her thirties, had five or six years of work experience, and was headhunted by a high-salary headhunter from the United States.
Xing Baohua asked directly, "What is the specific situation now?"
"The hacker broke into the server, exploited a backend vulnerability to obtain customer information, and then used that information to register a restaurant. In this way, the hacker gradually logged into customers whose bank cards were linked and placed orders with that fake restaurant. The hacker was highly skilled; our server firewall didn't alert us until a customer discovered their account was empty and complained to us, revealing the seriousness of the problem. It took three days from the transfer to discovering the issue. I'm sorry, boss, we bear some responsibility," Zhao Jiajun explained slowly.
"We checked and there wasn't much loss," Xing Baohua then asked.
"It's close to over HK$100 million, with more than 300 clients. Some of them are wealthy and they've practically embezzled all the money from their accounts," a finance manager replied.
"What did J say?" Xing Baohua asked again.
“It’s still under investigation. They say this is a high-tech crime, the first case of cyber theft in Hong Kong. They don’t have the relevant technology, and there are no relevant laws to define it, so they can only define it as theft. Also, J said that our company is the most knowledgeable about cyber matters in Hong Kong, and they want us to find clues ourselves first.” The secretary wiped away a tear and said to Xing Baohua.
Xing Baohua sat in his office chair, lit a cigarette, and then had his subordinates sit on the guest sofa.
He needed a moment to think, tapping the table lightly with his hand, before saying to his secretary, "Call the lawyer; I need some legal assistance."
The secretary nodded, took out her phone, and dialed.
Xing Baohua then asked Han Jiajun, "Have you retrieved the server logs?"
"I've retrieved and backed it up." He said, taking a hard drive out of his bag and handing it to Xing Baohua.
He took it in his hand, looked at it for a moment, put it aside, and said, "Did you find anything?"
Han Jiajun shook his head slightly and said, "When the other party logged out, they deleted some traces and left no clues."
"What is the current status of the server?"
"It's already shut down!"
"The server has been completely formatted?"
"No, only a small portion of the data was deleted, which was the information from their fake registered stores. Our people have recovered it from the hard drive and backed it up."
Hearing this, Xing Baohua felt a little better. As long as the hard drive wasn't physically damaged, there was a 90% or higher chance of recovering the deleted data.
While current technology may not offer dedicated data recovery solutions, Xing Baohua has some understanding of the principles. He has organized a team to develop a dedicated data recovery software, which should be effective to some extent.
"The firewall didn't issue any alerts?"
"Yes," Zhao Jiajun replied to Xing Baohua's question.
"Do you think it was done by an individual or a team?" Xing Baohua asked Zhao Jiajun again.
“One person probably can’t do it; it will take at least two or three people to assist. They need to complete it in a very short time, otherwise the staff who check the server every day will find that the advanced management privileges have been occupied,” Zhao Jiajun replied.
"Have you ever suspected that it was done by an insider?" Xing Baohua asked again.
"Perhaps it's possible? An outsider trying to enter would first trigger the firewall. To do it so quietly suggests they have some knowledge of the firewall. They might find a vulnerability and bypass it. Sorry, boss, I'm not very knowledgeable about this," Zhao Jiajun said.
“It’s not just possible, it’s certain. And they know the password for advanced management privileges? They also know the server check times, so they need to complete all logins and transfers within two hours,” Xing Baohua explained, tapping on the table.
No sooner had he finished speaking than the secretary quickly stood up and said, "I'll go to the HR department to see who has recently resigned."
After saying that, he hurriedly opened the door and ran out.
Xing Baohua ignored his secretary's panic and said to Zhao Jiajun, "Let's go to the server room and take a look."
He left the insignificant supervisor behind and headed to the server room with the technicians. He also left a message for his secretary to come back and find him in the server room.
Xing Baohua and his team had barely arrived at the server room when his secretary followed. Panting, she asked Xing Baohua, "Boss, since the incident, not a single person in the company has resigned?"
"Okay, I understand. Notify the finance department to verify the customer's losses, and we will provide full compensation. You and the company's senior management should work together to come up with a public relations plan and use the media to minimize the reputation crisis." After Xing Baohua finished speaking, she asked her to get to work.
Upon arriving at the server room, Xing Baohua plugged in the hard drive with the backup logs and began checking them one by one.
Just as Zhao Jiajun said, it was very clean, without any trace.
However, any hardware, system, program, or even firewall has vulnerabilities. Even network switches and routers can be exploited to gain access to the system through various ports.
It's impossible to guard against everything. Sometimes even the designers don't know where the vulnerabilities are. Those who can find the vulnerabilities will patch them, while those who can't will just wait for someone else to discover them.
The intruder made a small mistake, so when exiting, they should have gone all out like Xing Baohua did, using a destructive virus to erase all traces.
The server has a virus; it's just hiding and waiting to be activated again.
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