Story code: ST-001144
Part 3: The Failed Brute-Force
The hum of the refrigerator was the only sound in the kitchen until Greg’s phone buzzed violently against the wood of the dining table. I watched him snatch it up, his knuckles turning white. He didn’t look at me, but his shoulders stiffened as he pressed the phone to his ear.
“Yes, Marcus,” Greg said, his voice pitched slightly higher than usual. He stepped toward the glass coffee table in the living room, away from where our mother was folding laundry. “No, we’re just… we’re finalizing the deployment configuration. It’s a security protocol issue. We’re on it.”
He paused, listening. Even from ten feet away, I could hear the tinny, urgent voice on the other end of the line. Marcus was the lead engineer for our integration partner, and he did not sound patient.
“Just fifteen minutes,” Greg pleaded, his eyes darting to my laptop bag on the floor, then back to his screen. “We will have the API endpoint live. I promise.”
He hung up and exhaled slowly. He picked up the yellow legal pad paper-my stolen therapy note-and a black pen. I watched him write something down, then type it into his laptop. He hit a key, waited, and then cursed under his breath. He scratched out what he had written and wrote something else.
I stood up and walked over to the table, standing just behind his chair. On the back of my private reflections about anxiety and exhaustion, Greg had written a list of potential passwords. He had tried my birthday, my childhood dog’s name, and variations of our mother’s maiden name. Below those, he had scribbled a list of numbers: “$50,000 upfront, $10,000 monthly maintenance.”
“Those are the terms Marcus offered you?” I asked quietly.
Greg flinched, quickly turning the yellow paper over to hide the scribbles. “This is business, Sarah. I’m trying to save the deal you’re currently tanking with your stubbornness.”
“You told Mom and Dad you were taking over to help me rest,” I said.
My mother walked into the room, holding a stack of folded towels. She looked between us, her brow furrowed. “Is everything alright? Greg, did you get the website updated?”
“It’s just a minor technical hitch, Mom,” Greg said, his face flushing. “Sarah is refusing to cooperate. She’s keeping the access codes locked. If she doesn’t give them to me right now, the partner is going to cancel the contract. She’s going to ruin everything we built.”
“Sarah, please,” my mother said, turning to me with that familiar, pitying look. “Your brother is trying to help you. Just give him what he needs so you can take your break.”
Before I could answer, Greg’s laptop chimed. An email from Marcus had just popped up on his screen. Because I was still CC’d on the company group alias, my phone buzzed in my pocket simultaneously. I pulled it out and read the message. Marcus had run a diagnostic on the server. The partner company had detected twelve failed brute-force login attempts from Greg’s IP address. They were flagging the account as compromised and locking the integration portal from their end until the lead developer-me-could verify the security of the database.
Greg stared at the email, his mouth slightly open. The screen reflected the red alert banner from their portal.