Betrayed: (A Financial and Conspiracies Thriller – Book 1 in the Legacy Thriller Series) by William Wield Page A
Authors: William Wield
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hedge fund, and force it to trade wildly out of control, that they’ll have the sense to see what it could do them too. We hope that having thought again, they’ll allow us to install our software onto their systems.’
‘Right,’ said Kim nodding her head, ‘one other thing − so that I’ve got the whole picture − why restrict the wild trading to just one minute?’
‘To limit potential losses,’ replied Angus. ‘Although the Bank of England is picking up any of this Hedge Fund’s losses, they still want to keep these to a minimum. For example, when high frequency trading on Wall Street ran out of control not long ago, in just three or four minutes of chaotic trading, the Dow Jones Index dropped some fifteen percent – that was billions of dollars of losses, in just minutes.’
‘So let’s hope the demonstration message gets across to these waverers.’
‘Yes, we hope so.’
‘Just so as I understand the actual process,’ said Kim, ‘you install the Athena warning system and then what happens?’
‘As soon as an attack comes in, virtually instantaneously, it triggers Athena’s counter attack which disables the attacker,’ replied Angus, ‘and their equipment will be rendered useless.’
‘Right,’ said Kim. ‘Is there anything connected with Athena or the weekend that I can help with before we go up to Craithe?’
‘Maybe,’ replied Angus. ‘We’ve been asked to get the latest information we have on Athena over to my old friend Freddy Briston for the Cobra Meeting that’s about to take place,’
‘Freddy Briston, the Chancellor of the Exchequer?’
‘Yes, one of his senior aides asked for the Athena update for the meeting Cobra meeting so we need to do that right away,’ said Angus.
‘What could I do to help with that?’ asked Kim.
‘Ring Perry,’ replied Angus. ‘But just about anyone else in the team knows what to do. At short notice – which it is right now – the safest way to send secret documents is to put them onto a special computer memory stick. Just tell whoever you speak to, to use our standard method; tell them to send by Towneley Bank courier what’s known as the Update File to Freddy at Number 11 Downing Street.’
‘If the Athena stuff is so secret, isn’t that a risk, sending on a little memory-stick?’
‘Not memory sticks that we use,’ said Angus, ‘they all have a self-defence programme on them. Anyone intercepting it and trying to get into it to see what’s there will simply have their equipment locked down and made unless they’ve first use a complex password.’
‘So completely safe?’ asked Kim.
‘Yes, always worked very well when we’ve used them to date, so if you ring Perry he’ll tell you what to do.’
During the next half hour or so, Angus rang number eleven Downing Street. The Chancellor was busy and could not speak to him so he asked for Mr Cape. When he got through to Mina, she rattled off such a convincing need for an update of Athena that he told Kim it was all right to send it to Downing Street. Kim got Perry to deal with it. She then closed off all the banking issues for the weekend and returned to Angus’s office.
‘As you’re now going to be involved in Craithe’s business,’ said Angus, ‘is there anything that is particularly worrying you about the project?’
‘Nothing desperate,’ replied Kim as she sat opposite Angus again.‘Though a little while back I asked you if Athena could cope with both the launch and an attack at the same time, and you said something to the effect of I hope so – why the doubt?’
A smile flickered across Angus’s face for a moment and was quickly gone again. ‘Up till now we’ve only been able to practice on mock adversaries. But tomorrow the attack will be from a real live hacker – one who has been practicing for their attack in Manila. We won’t know if they’ve learned any new tricks we don’t know about until they actually attack.’
‘Is that a
‘Right,’ said Kim nodding her head, ‘one other thing − so that I’ve got the whole picture − why restrict the wild trading to just one minute?’
‘To limit potential losses,’ replied Angus. ‘Although the Bank of England is picking up any of this Hedge Fund’s losses, they still want to keep these to a minimum. For example, when high frequency trading on Wall Street ran out of control not long ago, in just three or four minutes of chaotic trading, the Dow Jones Index dropped some fifteen percent – that was billions of dollars of losses, in just minutes.’
‘So let’s hope the demonstration message gets across to these waverers.’
‘Yes, we hope so.’
‘Just so as I understand the actual process,’ said Kim, ‘you install the Athena warning system and then what happens?’
‘As soon as an attack comes in, virtually instantaneously, it triggers Athena’s counter attack which disables the attacker,’ replied Angus, ‘and their equipment will be rendered useless.’
‘Right,’ said Kim. ‘Is there anything connected with Athena or the weekend that I can help with before we go up to Craithe?’
‘Maybe,’ replied Angus. ‘We’ve been asked to get the latest information we have on Athena over to my old friend Freddy Briston for the Cobra Meeting that’s about to take place,’
‘Freddy Briston, the Chancellor of the Exchequer?’
‘Yes, one of his senior aides asked for the Athena update for the meeting Cobra meeting so we need to do that right away,’ said Angus.
‘What could I do to help with that?’ asked Kim.
‘Ring Perry,’ replied Angus. ‘But just about anyone else in the team knows what to do. At short notice – which it is right now – the safest way to send secret documents is to put them onto a special computer memory stick. Just tell whoever you speak to, to use our standard method; tell them to send by Towneley Bank courier what’s known as the Update File to Freddy at Number 11 Downing Street.’
‘If the Athena stuff is so secret, isn’t that a risk, sending on a little memory-stick?’
‘Not memory sticks that we use,’ said Angus, ‘they all have a self-defence programme on them. Anyone intercepting it and trying to get into it to see what’s there will simply have their equipment locked down and made unless they’ve first use a complex password.’
‘So completely safe?’ asked Kim.
‘Yes, always worked very well when we’ve used them to date, so if you ring Perry he’ll tell you what to do.’
During the next half hour or so, Angus rang number eleven Downing Street. The Chancellor was busy and could not speak to him so he asked for Mr Cape. When he got through to Mina, she rattled off such a convincing need for an update of Athena that he told Kim it was all right to send it to Downing Street. Kim got Perry to deal with it. She then closed off all the banking issues for the weekend and returned to Angus’s office.
‘As you’re now going to be involved in Craithe’s business,’ said Angus, ‘is there anything that is particularly worrying you about the project?’
‘Nothing desperate,’ replied Kim as she sat opposite Angus again.‘Though a little while back I asked you if Athena could cope with both the launch and an attack at the same time, and you said something to the effect of I hope so – why the doubt?’
A smile flickered across Angus’s face for a moment and was quickly gone again. ‘Up till now we’ve only been able to practice on mock adversaries. But tomorrow the attack will be from a real live hacker – one who has been practicing for their attack in Manila. We won’t know if they’ve learned any new tricks we don’t know about until they actually attack.’
‘Is that a
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