study.’
73
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10/29/2007, 11:56 AM
8. WINDOWS
Kurt Lydon’s study was locked, but that’s not a major problem for a CHERUB agent. Greg opened the door easily, using a straight pick attached to his lock gun. Two bedrooms had been knocked
together to create Kurt’s workspace and thirt y thousand pounds had been invested in specialised computer equipment.
Two powerful Dell workstations hummed away inside a special cooling cabinet and there was a huge inkjet plotter for making blueprints. One wall shelved thick books with titles like Advanced Molecular Thermodynamics and Mathematical Modelling for Turbulent Plumes and Jets . Pride of place went to a pair of 30-inch ultra-high-resolution 74
HS1829_WBD_Cherub.p65
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10/29/2007, 11:56 AM
LCD panels, worth over ten grand apiece. Beside Kurt’s regular keyboard and mouse was a multibuttoned spaceball controller, designed for manipulating 3D images on screen.
Andy had spent hours practising with an
identical system on CHERUB campus, but still felt intimidated as he sank into Kurt Lydon’s highbacked office chair. He tapped the space bar and was pleased to see that the computer was only in standby, but the screen demanded a password. Greg was already on the case. He’d sneaked into the room on an after-school visit t wo weeks earlier and installed a hardware keylogger bet ween the keyboard plug and the USB port on the back of Kurt’s main computer.
Keyloggers contain memory chips that record every keystroke entered into a computer. When the logger got back to the MI5 lab it would hopefully reveal all sorts of information that Kurt had t yped over the previous fortnight, but all they needed right now was Kurt’s main password. Greg pulled a tiny laptop out of his backpack, plugged in the keylogger and sat on the f loor while the machine booted up.
75
HS1829_WBD_Cherub.p65
75
10/29/2007, 11:56 AM
‘We haven’t got all night,’ Andy moaned.
‘Keep your wig on,’ Greg teased. ‘These tiny laptops aren’t very powerful. It takes a couple of minutes to boot up and there’s diddly squat I can do about it.’
Andy hated waiting around. Missions were OK
when his mind was occupied, but he had a nervous disposition and waiting always made him start thinking about stuff that could go wrong.
‘OK,’ Greg said when he’d finally accessed the keylogger data. ‘First session, last Friday week. Capital A R then lower case i s t o t l e followed by a hash, a percentage sign and the numbers five, three, one and eight.’
Andy was relieved that Windows accepted the password. ‘Never would have guessed that one,’
he gasped, as the desktop and taskbar appeared on screen.
The screen was specifically designed for high resolution work, which left the dozens of tiny icons looking like specks amidst the huge expanse of screen. Greg put his laptop on the carpet and passed Andy a ring-binder and CD-rom from his backpack.
76
HS1829_WBD_Cherub.p65
76
10/29/2007, 11:56 AM
Andy placed the silver disc in a tray and let the Dell swallow it. A dialogue box popped up on screen and he clicked OK to install a forensic program designed by the securit y services, known as Window Breaker. The program froze time, ensuring that no time and date stamps were left when files were altered. It also enabled a back door into the Windows operating system that bypassed most Windows securit y protocols.
The second program on the CD was a Trojan horse. Once installed, MI5 would be able to access Kurt’s computer, remotely reading his files and monitoring all activit y. The instant the program was installed, Kurt’s anti-virus soft ware f lashed up a warning. Andy had fully expected this and the third program on the CD dealt with it by installing a patch that made the anti-virus turn a blind eye to the unwanted soft ware.
‘OK, that’s the soft ware installed,’ Andy smiled. ‘You’d better start hunting for the dreaded backups.’
Andy planned to spend
73
HS1829_WBD_Cherub.p65
73
10/29/2007, 11:56 AM
8. WINDOWS
Kurt Lydon’s study was locked, but that’s not a major problem for a CHERUB agent. Greg opened the door easily, using a straight pick attached to his lock gun. Two bedrooms had been knocked
together to create Kurt’s workspace and thirt y thousand pounds had been invested in specialised computer equipment.
Two powerful Dell workstations hummed away inside a special cooling cabinet and there was a huge inkjet plotter for making blueprints. One wall shelved thick books with titles like Advanced Molecular Thermodynamics and Mathematical Modelling for Turbulent Plumes and Jets . Pride of place went to a pair of 30-inch ultra-high-resolution 74
HS1829_WBD_Cherub.p65
74
10/29/2007, 11:56 AM
LCD panels, worth over ten grand apiece. Beside Kurt’s regular keyboard and mouse was a multibuttoned spaceball controller, designed for manipulating 3D images on screen.
Andy had spent hours practising with an
identical system on CHERUB campus, but still felt intimidated as he sank into Kurt Lydon’s highbacked office chair. He tapped the space bar and was pleased to see that the computer was only in standby, but the screen demanded a password. Greg was already on the case. He’d sneaked into the room on an after-school visit t wo weeks earlier and installed a hardware keylogger bet ween the keyboard plug and the USB port on the back of Kurt’s main computer.
Keyloggers contain memory chips that record every keystroke entered into a computer. When the logger got back to the MI5 lab it would hopefully reveal all sorts of information that Kurt had t yped over the previous fortnight, but all they needed right now was Kurt’s main password. Greg pulled a tiny laptop out of his backpack, plugged in the keylogger and sat on the f loor while the machine booted up.
75
HS1829_WBD_Cherub.p65
75
10/29/2007, 11:56 AM
‘We haven’t got all night,’ Andy moaned.
‘Keep your wig on,’ Greg teased. ‘These tiny laptops aren’t very powerful. It takes a couple of minutes to boot up and there’s diddly squat I can do about it.’
Andy hated waiting around. Missions were OK
when his mind was occupied, but he had a nervous disposition and waiting always made him start thinking about stuff that could go wrong.
‘OK,’ Greg said when he’d finally accessed the keylogger data. ‘First session, last Friday week. Capital A R then lower case i s t o t l e followed by a hash, a percentage sign and the numbers five, three, one and eight.’
Andy was relieved that Windows accepted the password. ‘Never would have guessed that one,’
he gasped, as the desktop and taskbar appeared on screen.
The screen was specifically designed for high resolution work, which left the dozens of tiny icons looking like specks amidst the huge expanse of screen. Greg put his laptop on the carpet and passed Andy a ring-binder and CD-rom from his backpack.
76
HS1829_WBD_Cherub.p65
76
10/29/2007, 11:56 AM
Andy placed the silver disc in a tray and let the Dell swallow it. A dialogue box popped up on screen and he clicked OK to install a forensic program designed by the securit y services, known as Window Breaker. The program froze time, ensuring that no time and date stamps were left when files were altered. It also enabled a back door into the Windows operating system that bypassed most Windows securit y protocols.
The second program on the CD was a Trojan horse. Once installed, MI5 would be able to access Kurt’s computer, remotely reading his files and monitoring all activit y. The instant the program was installed, Kurt’s anti-virus soft ware f lashed up a warning. Andy had fully expected this and the third program on the CD dealt with it by installing a patch that made the anti-virus turn a blind eye to the unwanted soft ware.
‘OK, that’s the soft ware installed,’ Andy smiled. ‘You’d better start hunting for the dreaded backups.’
Andy planned to spend
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