May 2
Park Avenue at East 51st Street
New York City
2:47 P.M. EDT
Beck Casey pursed his lips doubtfully.
“If the virus infects that many computers, how come nobody picked up on it before this refinery blew?”
There was no immediate response, and Beck shifted his gaze from the smoke-gray window of the Suburban back to Billy Carson, who was himself idly pedestrian-watching from the far side of the vehicle’s second-row bench seat. The driver, alone in the front seat, broadcast a stolid, professional deafness that bespoke long experience at not listening to what he should not hear.
In the trade, when it comes time for sharing secrets, everybody has his or her own idiosyncrasies: Carson, Beck remembered, had always preferred moving vehicles. Beck could only guess at the reason why; but he knew Carson, and therefore knew there was a reason.
“A few years ago, the people at Microsoft held a little demonstration,” Carson said, finally. “They brought in a roomful of corporate clients—heavy hitters, top people from every business sector. They sat them down in an auditorium in Seattle. On the stage was a single computer connected to a monitor the size of a movie screen. There was a large digital stopwatch alongside the screen. Know what they did next?”
Beck waited.
“They switched on the computer,” Carson said. “And the stopwatch. Turns out that the computer was connected to the Internet, the monitor displayed each ‘new’ software download, and the stopwatch showed how fast a computer—any computer—would be exposed to a malware virus online.”
Carson shrugged. “Wasn’t much of a demonstration. The first virus hit at less than a half-second; by the thirty-second mark there were more than 600 of them tallied.”
He chuckled. “That’s when they stopped the demonstration. Rather, that’s when the computer stopped it. Seems one of the bugs went active and fried the computer’s operating system. Stone-cold dead. Turned it into an expensive paperweight.”
“So? That’s why people buy anti-virus programs.”
“That was the kicker, Beck. The computer had state-of-the-art ‘protection’ software installed. Sure—some were detected and blocked: hurray for the good guys. But they still missed more than a hundred, and it only took one of those to smoke the computer’s circuits. With the sheer volume of malware flying around the Internet—new versions every day—the good guys simply can’t keep up. In the years since the Microsoft demonstration, things have gotten a quantum worse. You may have heard how long it took a virus-protection firm in Germany to even identify the Stuxnet virus that hit the Iranians.”
“Stuxnet wasn’t written by some run-of-the-mill hacker, Billy.”
“And we’re not the only nation-state engaged in cyberwarfare,” Carson retorted. The fire in his eyes flared, then died. “Given what we’re dealing with now, we might not even be the best at it.”
Beck’s eyes narrowed. “What aren’t you telling me, Billy?”
“The Germans only recognized Stuxnet when it started showing up outside Iran’s computer system; it had somehow escaped into the wild. The difference is that Stuxnet looked suspicious; in that case, once one started to examine it, the code virtually announced itself—even to programmers and analysts who had never seen it before.”
“I guess that turned out to be an embarrassing mistake. Did your people slide off the learning curve for this new one, too?”
Carson shook his head. “The malcode we’re looking at now is far more elusive. It was written to look innocuous, which it does quite elegantly. Unless one knows what to look for, it is almost impossible to isolate and identify.”
“But your people did,” Beck insisted. “So what’s the problem, now that—”
“I haven’t fully answered your first question, Beck. The fact is, we’ve been aware that this new virus has been out there for almost two weeks. That’s when one of our NSA teams recognized it.”
Beck’s jaw dropped. “You found it two—”
“Not ‘found,’” Carson said. “I said recognized it. You see, we wrote it.”