🌐︎ how to tell if pc hacked
On top of her receptionist duties, Nora was in charge of all recordkeeping in Northline Depot — and if that wasn’t enough, her custody over the warehouse’s internal database meant that it was her job to figure out if it got hacked or tampered with.
If it wasn’t clear from her job position, she didn’t actually know anything about all that stuff. She was certainly more tech-literate than, say, Marty — or Darrell, who left his phone in his bag and carried a PDA around at work — but she was in no way qualified to have been made the provisional IT person. She didn’t know shit about coding or filesystems or whatever; she just fixed things by clicking random buttons that looked correct, and then either looking up the solution online or giving up.
Still, complaining was for interns and layabout bosses, and Nora was neither of those. She had a job, and she’d do it, even if it meant working alone in the office at 11 pm when almost everyone else was in their living rooms watching TV. Overtime was kind of peaceful, anyhow — no one was there to yell at her for the half-empty half-bottle on her desk. The only other person in the building was the maintenance guy, Silas, who worked the night shift and swept the floors, never talking to anyone. The two each kept to their own space.
how to check if anyone else accessed my pc
The office was a circular space, surrounded by blank, undecorated walls on every side, save for the opening that made for the front desk. It was otherwise a fully enclosed space, separating Nora and her desk from the world of distractions and annoyances beyond. Actually, there was a single door the led from the staff break room, but as long as Nora was on shift, that door would unlock exactly two times a day. Four on the occasional day she took a restroom break.
Her customer-facing duties consisted of calling Marty if there was a new client, or mumbling and getting them to sign paperwork if swaying their business wasn’t the objective. They weren’t duties she took a lot of delight in. At night, the doors could be locked, the lights dimmed, and she’d have a quiet space to herself. No tapping footsteps and dinging bells, no overbearing bosses or uncomfortable small talk. No sound except the intermittent buzzing of old fluorescent tubes and the faint sweeping of a broom along the floor, combing the same area again and again.
>Win + R
>event vwr.msc
She idly took another little swig, woody alcohol burning down her esophagus, maintaining her carefully-calibrated BAC of 0.138% that conferred a divine state of late-night lucid consciousness. The bottle sat on the table amid a chaotic assortment of printed documents, half-filled out forms, cheap pens, earplugs, sticky notes, empty cups, wires, wrappers, stains, and other bullshit she swept out of her immediate workspace so she could rest her arms.
She rubbed her eyes, the sound of her fingers typing in rhythm with footsteps and a worn-out mop.
>Event ID 4624
>Logon Type 13: Remote Connection
>Impersonation Level: Anonymous
About 80% these words carried zero meaning to her. She was just following the instructions some anonymous user posted on an old tech help forum seven years ago. People, especially the extroverted kind like Marty, often said she was a confusing type — but whatever aspect of her personality that was directed at, it was clearly pale in comparison to the machinations of whatever sociopath designed the Windows operating system. Apparently it wasn’t fashionable to tell her straightforwardly, “your computer got hacked and your database deleted, idiot.” Or not — this was all speculation on her end.
>An attempt was made to access objects.
>Access to view objects denied.
>Access to edit objects denied.
Well, never mind.
>9 objects were deleted.
>Erased: 5 directories, 274 files.
>Handle ID: 0x2172s
While Nora could never exaggerate how subpar her computer skills were, this string of obtusely-written messages quite clearly confirmed her theory. She habitually reached for the bottle. If they had been hacked, which seemed all but confirmed, then what would she do about it anyhow? Transfer all their data to another device, and then maybe throw this desktop into a lake — for a start at least. Marty had finally approved her order for a four-pack of gigabyte USB drives, so she’d have to put those to use whenever they arrived.
Wait a second. What the hell? Why would some unknown intruder come and delete the database for a warehouse? They were a third-rate storage company in fuckoff nowhere. All they had were meticulously-organized spreadsheets, tables, document scans… personal information. Names, emails, phone numbers. Financial records. And of course, terrible security.
Maybe she really did need to throw the desktop into a lake, as well as the rest of their digital infrastructure.
By some miracle of Windows 7 cruft, crisis had been averted. Whatever malicious person or entity had set their target to the Northline Depot database was targeting their customers. Granted, Northline didn’t really attract the most important people — just the regular folks, the kind of people who couldn’t or wouldn’t pay for a more secure or well-furnished storage service. The kind of people who wore overcoats in the summer and brimmed hats indoors, people who fidgeted in their pockets and hesitated to talk about their bank accounts. Who worked for companies with no reviews and unmaintained websites, left behind boxes that they didn’t want opened…
Someone really wanted that data.
Her bottle went dry. Nora, her thoughts racing yet blurry and stumbling, hardly noticed the door behind her office chair creak open behind her.
“Ms. Jennings,” a low, bulky voice came from behind.
She jumped inside, snapping a 180 in her chair.
“Oh,” she sighed. “Silas, it’s just you.”
“Mm. You’ve been here for seventeen hours,” he said, mumbling in a thick but measured tone. “Think it’s time for you to head home.” He was slightly slouched as he usually stood, with a broom or mop always in one hand.
“I can’t, Silas. Our filesystem got hacked, and I can’t explain how or why—”
He grunted, holding up a hand. “I get it, Nora, I do. But sometimes…” He vaguely gazed out the opening in the circular office space, over the empty reception area. Beyond the glass front doors at the far end was the dark of the night, the only sound in the two’s together silence being the hum of cars along the midnight highway.
“Sometimes, you gotta take a breath.”
“I guess working two shifts in a row does make you go a little crazy.”
For a moment, Silas continued to stare out at the night, before wordlessly shuffling out the office door. Nora, her bag and keys in hand, shut the door behind her.
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