Phi-Fic Chapter 446 The "Mole" Takes Action Again
Chapter 446 The "Mole" Takes Action Again
The intrusion was detected by the Spark server on Thursday night. The security department later reviewed the incident and found that the time was carefully chosen – 11:40 p.m. on Thursday night, just 20 minutes before midnight on Friday, during the shift change of night security guards.
The server room of the Systems Department is located on the third floor of the R&D Center at the east end. There is a card access control at the entrance, but that night after 11:30 p.m., the access control system was undergoing quarterly maintenance and the magnetic lock was disconnected for about forty minutes.
The other party logged in using the same account as before—Zhang Wei's employee ID, which he hadn't deleted after leaving the company. The security department patched all known vulnerabilities after detecting the intrusion last time, but this account was somehow overlooked.
It wasn't that he forgot; his account was linked to a temporary project permission group in the systems department. That group was created last year for database migration, and nobody remembered to disband it after the project ended. Zhang Wei had been added to that group before he left, and since the group wasn't deleted after he left, his account has remained active with it ever since.
When Lao Zhou reported this to Ling Yun, his face turned bright red. He wasn't the type to shirk responsibility and take all the blame. Ling Yun didn't scold him; she simply asked, "What did they take this time?"
Old Zhou placed a list of documents on the table. The list was three pages long, with the file size and last modified time indicated after each item. "Test data for the StarCore chip. All test records after the first batch of tape-outs returned, including power consumption curves, GPU stress test results, USB controller packet loss rate statistics, and—" He tapped on the last few lines of the list, "a yield summary table and defect distribution map. These files add up to nearly two gigabytes. The other party downloaded them in three separate downloads, each about five minutes apart, probably to avoid triggering a traffic alert by downloading a large file all at once."
Ling Yun read the list from beginning to end. When he reached the last line, he placed the paper on the table and flattened it with his palm. "Who has the authority to view this data on the internal system?"
"R&D department supervisors and above, system administrators, and—" Old Zhou hesitated for a moment, "...the project assistant on General Manager Li's side. Zhang Wei used to be in this access group."
"And now? After Zhang Wei left, who's left in this access group?"
Old Zhou pulled another piece of paper from his bag; it was a list of authorized group members, printed this afternoon. The list had six names: five were long-time employees of the systems department, and the last was Liu Jun.
Ling Yun's gaze lingered on the name "Liu Jun" for a moment. "His access hasn't been revoked yet?"
"It's shut down," Lao Zhou said. "After the last investigation, we blocked his internal account. But the permissions of this temporary project team—I thought blocking the main account would be enough, but the permissions of this temporary team weren't cleared separately."
Ling Yun placed the list on the table, stood up, and walked to the window. It was completely dark outside, and the lights from the workshop shone through the branches of the poplar trees, casting dappled shadows on the floor.
"What does it mean that the test data was stolen?" he asked.
Two other people were standing behind Lao Zhou: Zhao Hu and an engineer from the security department who did log analysis. The three of them looked at each other, and finally Lao Zhou spoke up.
"It means the other side now knows the true level of our chips. Yield, power consumption, performance metrics—they can see it all at a glance. If they take this data and analyze it, they can deduce the strengths and weaknesses of our entire chip design. More importantly—" He paused, "they now know that most of the defects we mentioned in our disinformation were false."
Ling Yun turned around. "Most of them?"
"Power consumption is indeed higher, but not by a factor of two; it's about 15%. GPU screen flickering only occurs in two specific rendering scenarios, not across all scenarios. And the yield rate is not the 30% mentioned in the false information—it's 86%."
"In other words, they now know we're lying to them."
"right."
Ling Yun walked to the table, picked up the list of stolen documents, and looked at it again. After reading it, he handed the list to Zhao Hu. "What do you think?"
Zhao Hu took the document, flipped through it, and then handed it to the engineer next to him. "Last time it was chip design documents, this time it's test data. The stolen items are different, but the method is the same—both used Zhang Wei's account, both used overseas redirecting IPs, and both ultimately landed near the development zone." He put his hands in his pockets, his posture unchanged, but his voice was even lower. "Just like last time, the IP ultimately pointed to the same place. That teahouse."
"Longteng Teahouse," Lao Zhou added, "is on that street in the development zone. The last time Zhao Hu filmed Liu Jun meeting with that eccentric guy, it was in that teahouse."
The office was silent for a few seconds. There were footsteps outside in the corridor, approaching and then fading away, followed by the ding of the elevator doors opening.
"Regarding account permissions," Lingyun said to Lao Zhou, "clean up all the permissions for all departing employees tonight. Don't leave any for anyone. From now on, when an employee leaves, their permissions will be revoked on the same day."
Old Zhou nodded and made a note in his notebook.
"There's one more thing."
Ling Yun took a pen from the pen holder and wrote two words in the blank space of the permission group list: "Liu Jun".
"Don't touch this person's permissions for now."
Old Zhou was stunned. "President Ling, he already knows we're using false information—"
"Yes," Ling Yun said, "That's precisely why taking action against him now is tantamount to telling him we're already watching him. He stole the test data, and Yixiang will soon discover that we've set a trap for them with false information. But at the same time, they'll also discover something else—the test data is real. The problems hidden in the real data are also real: high power consumption, screen flickering in two GPU scenarios, and occasional packet loss via USB. We've already fixed these issues in the second version, but they don't know about the second version."
Zhao Hu nodded slowly. "So they'll think the chip issue is less serious than we're saying, but it definitely exists. When our phone is released, it'll be a major event—"
"right."
Ling Yun picked up the pen on the table and drew an upward arrow next to the name "Liu Jun." "From now on, three things regarding Liu Jun. First, don't alert him. Second, write down every message he sends out. Third—"
He turned to Zhao Hu. "Keep an eye on the teahouse. It closes after dark, and he'll have to go home eventually. On his way home, he'll pass through a small alley without streetlights. At the end of the alley, there's a public phone booth."
Zhao Hu took out his phone and wrote a few words in his notes app: "You want me to wait for him by the phone booth?"
"Don't wait for him. Install a camera next to the phone booth."
Old Zhou folded and refolded the access group list, finally stuffing it into his bag. "Mr. Ling, among the test data Liu Jun stole, one file was copied, but the access timestamp of the original file wasn't modified. I checked three times and confirmed it wasn't. He downloaded a backup copy." He paused, "In other words, he didn't take the latest version of the data."
Ling Yun put the list of stolen documents into the drawer and pushed it in. "It's not the latest version of the data, but it's still real data. It's just an older version. We know the difference between these versions, but they don't."
After the drawer was pushed in, the surface of the table returned to its clean state. Only the whiteboard with the word "wait" written on it still stood against the wall, its dense lines and circles resembling an old map unfolded under the fluorescent light.