Chapter 5 - The Sabotage RevealedA murmur rippled through the committee. Dr. Harrison, the senior member of the board, leaned forward, his brow furrowed. "A live test case, Candidate Sterling? What do you mean?"
"As we speak," Claire explained, clicking her remote to split the projection screen in two, "an unauthorized entity is attempting to bypass the university’s firewall to access and copy the proprietary algorithms of the Veritas system. They believe they are accessing a vulnerable, unencrypted directory. In reality, they have walked directly into a digital honeypot."
On the left side of the screen, a real-time data log began to scroll.
Target File: Veritas_Core_v4.2.source
Access Protocol: Unauthorized Admin Override
Source IP: 192.168.1.104 (Routed via local cellular proxy)
Hardware ID: DESKTOP-D7K9PL3 (Registered to Daniel Vance)
Daniel’s face drained of color. He sat up straight, his hand instinctively reaching into his pocket to check his phone. His thumb frantically tapped the screen, trying to abort the script, but the connection was locked. The honeypot had seized his terminal.
"As you can see on the monitor," Claire said, pointing to the scrolling lines of code, "the intruder is using a compromised administrative credential. This credential was stolen from my personal device at approximately 2:14 a.m. this morning."
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"This is highly irregular," Dr. Harrison said, looking from the screen to Claire. "Are you suggesting an active cyber theft is occurring during your defense?"
"I am not suggesting it, Dr. Harrison," Claire said, her eyes locking onto Daniel, who was now sweating profusely under his collar. "I am demonstrating it. And the thief is in this room."
