Controlling Vulnerable

Chapter 23

Will had a look of determination as he saw Scott coming out of his office and heading in the same direction. He narrowed his eyes and something deep down told him he needed to get to Ben first. He found the slight, dark-haired IT manager at his desk, and he looked up at Will in surprise. Will stuck a hand out and said, "Hi, I don't think we've ever been introduced, I'm Will, Joe's attorney. Joe and I need some help with something, can you step into the conference room? Bring your laptop." Ben looked wary, intimidated by the lawyer he vaguely recognised with the expensive suit and powerful aura. Once they were inside Ben said, "What's this about? Am I being accused of doing something wrong?" Will sighed, "No, sit down Ben. An E-mail with a file containing confidential information was sent externally from Lara's account earlier today. I don't believe it was her who sent it. Lara said we should check the logs and some new controls that went live in the New Year. Do you know what she means?" Ben looked up, "I know what new controls we put in, and the logs run automatically. I worked on it with her." Will nodded, "Good. So what are they, will they show anything to help prove she didn't send this E-mail?" Ben leaned forward, "They were user access controls for all our drives. Lara and I were working out a system where every employee can only access the information they need to do their job. Before that, we all had access to pretty much every Callex drive. What was the information? If I know what the file was I can give you a list of who had access." Will nodded, "Good, come with me." Ben followed him out and back to Joe's office.

Linda had sat Lara down in the downstairs reception by security and got her to pass over her keys and her lanyard. She had a word with the guys on the desk and they glanced over in sympathy at the English girl who always stopped to chat on her way in. Linda told them she was sick, but Mickey Morris wasn't born yesterday, and he saw Linda tuck the lanyard into the pocket of her dress. Mark eventually appeared and took over, holding Lara tight and whispering, "Come on Lara honey, let's get you out of here." Linda squeezed her hand and left swiftly, keen to get back to help Joe.

Will had just brought Ben who was carrying his laptop into Joe's office when Linda got back. Joe had finished drafting a brief communication explaining they'd been a malicious leak of information relating to remediation work required for historic releases of Callex cyber software, but controls were now in place to prevent similar issues with future releases and indeed any such leaks going forward. Will read over it on the screen, nodded and Linda said, "Do you want me to send it out to the next quarter's renewals?" Will jumped in and said, "Joe, talk to your investors first. You don't want them to hear from another source." Joe nodded, "Okay, I will, but Ben, what are these control logs Lara said we should check?" Ben stepped forward putting his laptop on the meeting table, "Can you tell me the file name?" Joe swung Lara's laptop around to show him and Ben typed the filename into his search bar. While it was searching he looked up and said, "Even within the drives, Lara had me restrict certain folders." He turned his attention back to his laptop. "Right, I put this info together for Scott, it's my file. It's saved in our drive, in the remediations folder." Joe looked at his screen, "Who has access?" Ben brought up another screen, "It's quite a long list. It's here, and there, on the log, you can see the file was accessed this morning just before that E-mail was sent." Joe looked at Will and said desperately, "Ben, is Lara on the list? Could she access it?" Ben smiled, "God no. Lara said she was a perfect example for the new controls. She said she didn't need access to anything except the new Risk drive." Joe exhaled in relief and Ben continued, "She couldn't have sent it anyway." Will said, "Why? What else do you have?" Ben looked deadpan, "She was on a TEAMS call at the exact time that E-mail was sent. We were talking to one of the recruitment agencies we use, asking them to help us test some new alerts around eternal E-mails." He brought up a new window on the laptop and turned it to show Joe as Will leaned over, "See, here's the record of the call. See the time? She was on my laptop when that E-mail was sent, she didn't bring hers out of her office."