I
John is the owner of a small consulting business. Last night, some important documents were stolen from John’s office. They were locked up in a safe and the only way to open the safe was with an 8-digit access code. Whoever got into the safe, must have had that code. So now he is trying to figure out who could get it.
Only two people in the company were authorized to have the code. To improve the security, John changed the code every month. He had the code of course, and so did his assistant, Sylvia. As far as he knew, nobody else had it or had ever asked to use it to get something from the safe. There was no reason for Sylvia to take the documents, so he couldn’t imagine that it was her. That wouldn’t make sense, and she was completely trustworthy. Besides, she was on a business trip and wouldn’t be back for several more days. So somebody else must have had the code and stolen the documents. If so, who was it and how did they get the code?
One possibility is that the code was written down somewhere, maybe in a notebook. Sylvia was famous for writing things down. She had a notoriously bad memory, so she kept a lot of notes. Maybe she wasn’t careful, and someone looked through her notes and discovered the code. but Sylvia wasn’t that careless or irresponsible. She would never have written the code down on a piece of paper. So that couldn’t be the answer.
II
Another possibility is that somebody hacked into her computer. She had probably stored the code somewhere on her computer and the thief was able to get it from there. But who could it have been? Suddenly, he realized that there was a new IT guy in the office. He maintained the company’s computer network and provided technical support for the staff. Perhaps he was the guilty one. If anyone could have done it, he certainly had the skills. He was a security expert and he had helped Sylvia install something on her computer last week.
Then John realized that nobody had done a proper background check on the guy. One of the other engineers in the company had recommended him, and he seemed nice. They had been in a hurry to hire someone for the position so they didn’t check his background very carefully. Suddenly, he had a bad feeling. Immediately, he used his smartphone to check the company’s bank accounts. To his horror, he found that a large amount of money was missing from one of the accounts. There had been a large withdrawal earlier that morning, more than $75, 00. He then discovered that the money had been wired to an account in another country. So not only did the IT guy get the access code for the safe, but he also got the log-in information for the bank. This was a disaster.
John immediately called the police and reported the incident. He also called the bank to see if they could stop the transaction. Unfortunately, they said it was too late; the transaction had gone through. Just then, John got an email with the subject line: ”from the IT guy.”It showed smiley face and said, “Thank you for being so stupid. Don’t waste your time trying to find me. I’ve left the country and will never return. Be thankful that I didn’t take everything in the account. This should a good lesson for you.” It was signed, “Your IT guy.”
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