Two years later the International Telecommunication Union, the UN agency that manages information and communication technologies, discovered another very sophisticated piece of malware forty times larger than Stuxnet, which they called Flame. On investigation it turned out to be a precursor to Stuxnet that had somehow gone undetected.
While Stuxnet’s purpose was to destroy things, Flame’s was to spy on people. It spread through USB sticks and infected printers shared by the same network. It could also exchange data with any Bluetooth device, and through directional tunnels linked to Bluetooth enabled computers to steal information from other devices and embed itself from two kilometers away.
The scariest and most revealing aspect of Flame was how it got into computers in the first place-through an update in the Windows 7 operating system.
Because of the enormous amount of time, money, and resources needed to develop malware like Stuxnet and Flame, cyber experts around the world suspected that a large government was behind their development. And because Stuxnet had been targeted to disrupt Iran’s nuclear enrichment program and Flame had infected millions of computers throughout the Middle East, international experts suspected the United States and Israel, either working separately or together.
The Chinese had reason to be suspicious of the United States. But this time, according to Dina Brooke and the FBI expert, the United States was innocent. “The charges directed at us have been thoroughly investigated,” Brooke said, “and are absolutely untrue. It’s possible that the hackers involved are acting for some third party and are using the U.S. and Chinese servers as proxies.”
Crocker, who understood very little about computer systems, found all this fascinating. Before the cyber experts were dismissed, he asked one question.
“If it’s possible, as you say, to hide behind or piggyback off someone else’s server, could some other country, like Iran or North Korea, be behind these attacks?”
“The short answer is yes,” Brooke said. “With all the available stolen credit cards and Internet proxies, it’s really quite easy for attackers to become invisible.”
Crocker smelled a rat. He thought the North Koreans were up to something, maybe with the help of the Iranians, maybe on their own. He didn’t want to hear more hedging from Anders, who was now saying that given the recent tensions with China, the White House would be averse to any contingency in terms of North Korea that could directly or indirectly serve to further offend the Chinese.
Fuck Chinese sensibilities, he said to himself. If the North Koreans are counterfeiting our currency and hacking into our power grid, let’s kick their butts.
During a coffee break, Crocker stood on the steps of National Amphibious Base headquarters looking out on San Diego harbor. Seventeen years ago he had suffered through BUD/S training a few hundred yards from where he stood now-eight months of ass-kicking that involved endless runs on the beach, calisthenics, obstacle courses, swimming, boat drills, fast roping, land navigation, and dive training. Out of a hundred guys in his class, twenty-three had graduated.
Seventeen years ago he had driven cross-country in a beat-up TR6 with no brakes. Since then he had suffered all kinds of scars and bruises in places all over the world. As he watched Anders talking into a cell phone on the lawn, he marveled at how much the world had changed in seventeen years. When he received his SEAL Trident there was no war on terrorism, no ISIS, no Homeland Security, no FBI Cyber Division, and no cyberespionage.
Who knows what the next seventeen years will bring?
Whatever the new threats were or where they came from, he knew it was imperative that the United States respond with intelligent, decisive action. Dithering over a reply to al-Qaeda after the bombing of the U.S. embassies in Dar-es-Salaam and Nairobi and the attack on the USS Cole had led to tragedy. An ill-advised invasion of Iraq and the failure to act in Syria had encouraged the rise of ISIS.
If you saw warnings and didn’t heed them, you could expect bad things to follow. That was the hard, hard truth of life. Blaming people was a waste of time. You had to learn from your mistakes, take responsibility, and get better and smarter. The cold reality was that the world was becoming increasingly complex, dangerous, and interdependent. When rogue actors behaved badly, they had to be put in their place.
He watched Anders put the phone away and climb the steps. Crocker stepped into his path.
“If we’re not going to do something, you don’t need me here,” he said, scowling into the setting sun.
“Come on, Crocker,” Anders responded. “You’ve been around long enough to know how this works. We collect intel, analyze it, make plans, and recommend that the White House takes action. All we can do is hope they make the right decision this time.”
Day by day, Dawkins was growing increasingly anxious. He’d made it through nearly a week of ignoring the pleading look in Sung’s eyes when she brought him breakfast in the morning, and had gone about his business without mentioning the note from Dr. Shivan or the phone number he’d given her.
But today was different. For one thing, Sung hadn’t arrived at his room at 7 a.m. An older woman with gray streaks in her hair showed up instead. She spoke less English than Sung and offered no explanation for Sung’s absence. Instead, she served him a rolled egg omelet with kelp and carrots, and rice cakes, set out his clothes, and escorted him out to the waiting Kwon as though she had been doing this all along.
The second odd thing was that when Dawkins arrived in his workshop, his assistants weren’t there. So while he spun the gyro compass to test that it met no resistance from the digital resolver and platform shrouds, he wondered what was going on.
Maybe today was a holiday or some special government function was being held. Or perhaps Chiang-su and Sung had been caught passing another note. Or Dr. Shivan had spilled the beans during interrogation.
Normally, at lunchtime his junior assistant, Yi-Thaek, would roll in a small metal cart bearing hot soup, noodles, and some kind of salad. But today no food arrived. So he sat at the bench sipping rusty-tasting water from a plastic bottle while Kwon waited by the door reading a book in a weathered leather sleeve.
“Food?” he asked as he mimed putting something in his mouth and chewing. “Lunch?”
Kwon looked up at him sullenly, then removed a cell phone from the pouch on his belt and punched in a number.
Dawkins was adjusting the platform shroud when someone rapped on the door and handed Kwon two bowls of soup. The hot broth tasted greasy, and the slices of meat in it were as tough as shoe leather, but at least the soup spread warmth throughout his body, and with warmth came confidence and hope.
He’d almost convinced himself that there was a logical and nonalarming explanation for Sung’s absence when a crackly announcement came over the PA system.
He looked at Kwon to try to gauge his reaction. Kwon worked a piece of food out of his teeth, stood, and waved to Dawkins to follow him.
“Where are we going?”
Kwon didn’t answer. Dawkins hoped they were on their way back to his room, where he would be given time to fetch his parka and then be escorted outside. But when they reached the end of the hallway, Kwon turned right instead of left, grabbed Dawkins by the elbow, and led him down a short flight of steps and into a darkened room.
When the light came on, he saw that it was an oval amphitheater with about a dozen rows of chairs. The floor was concrete, and thick metal fencing separated the stage area from the seats. Two men entered and set a ten-foot-tall metal pole into a hole in the floor and secured it with bolts. As they worked, people started to file in silently and sit.