Chapter 11 Project Black Well

Xavier had already arranged for officers to secure the perimeter of the abandoned data center by dawn the next morning.Federal regulators and police officers were stationed outside the building, covering the entrances and surrounding areas. They weren't there to investigate the servers themselves. Instead, their job was to make sure nobody could escape once we went inside.…Meanwhile, Dylan and I entered the building and headed down to the second basement level.The place looked exactly like an abandoned data center should. Dust covered the floor, old cables hung loosely from the ceiling, and rows of forgotten server racks stood in the darkness.Almost every device was covered in a thick layer of dust, except for one row at the very back of the room.Those devices were spotless.Someone had clearly been using them.As we approached the active equipment, I noticed something painted on the wall behind the servers.It was a black circle resembling the opening of a deep well.I

Chapter 12 The Hunt Begins

One month later, the first phase of Langford Group's security overhaul was finally complete.All critical access permissions now relied on short-lived credentials, and we'd revoked every old encryption key. We split the logging service into three independent systems that continuously cross-checked one another, and we ran a separate security audit on every sensitive request.We'd also deployed decoy systems throughout the network perimeter, making it much harder for anyone to approach our critical infrastructure without being detected.Anyone trying to sneak into our network would trigger one of our traps long before reaching anything valuable.Now that the first phase was complete, the board of directors gathered for another meeting.Richard stood at the front of the conference room and addressed everyone."Over the past month, Langford Group has completed a major overhaul of its cybersecurity infrastructure," he announced. "We've successfully passed the regulatory review, our cl

All Chapters of The Family's Biggest Mistake: Chapter 11 - Chapter 12

Chapter 11 Project Black Well

Chapter 12 The Hunt Begins