The Fire Triangle -- Part II, Oxidizer

The Fire Triangle: Book II - Chapter 30

ARE YOU SURE YOU WANT TO DISABLE YOUR ANTI-MALWARE PROGRAMS?

[_]YES [_] NO

<<<<<THIS IS NOT RECOMMENDED>>>>

Tommy gulped down a mouthful of air, moved the cursor to 'Yes' and clicked...all the while keeping his eyes tightly shut.

He would make sure to turn the anti-malware apps back on when he was done—and he would accept no invitation, download no apps, and click on no attachments until he was done...so help him, Gamer GodZ.

Once more opening his eyes, he re-opened the Slaughter Race app, flexing his fingers and squeaking under his breath. "All right jerks...say hello to the new me."

First thing was first however; he needed to select a vehicle and get it pimped for competition. The first choice was easy, a 1970 Dawdge Challenger like the one from the movie Death Proof—and that other film whose name he was never able to recall. Along with his ride came the usual accessories, armored windows, nitrous injection, and a barely-concealed mini gun...the weapon of choice for most Slaughter Racers.

And ohhhh, what have we here? The option to load it with depleted Uranium slugs. Ooooo, he hadn't seen that add-on before...but hey, those bullets could get through just about anything and the selection only cost like 5 extra credits. He could easily swing that, and so he clicked on the icon at once.

Ahhh, the poor, eager, young deer mouse; he had no idea what he'd just let loose on his computer. Nor was he going to; his laptop wasn't the target, and for the moment the rogue application had only one purpose; find and infect more computers.

By the time Tommy finished his game, succeeding in reaching the next two levels as planned, the malware that he had unwittingly uploaded had spread to the computers of at least seven other players—all of whom had also disabled their anti-virus software. At least five more had acquired it directly from the same source as him. After logging off from Slaughter Race, one of them, a guinea pig from Bulltimore named Sarah Wheatland shared a video she had created on Dik-Dok. Several minutes later she received a frantic DM from her online bud, Magebuni520, a jackrabbit living in Pawstin Texas. When she'd clicked on the video, instead of the playback starting, a popup window from Maulwarebytes had appeared. 'File Not Opened Due to Trojan.' Upon hearing the news Sarah immediately deleted the vid—both from Dik-Dok and her computer, but by that time at least two dozen others had viewed it—and of those, less than half had seen it blocked by their anti-virus software. The rest remained blissfully unaware that their computers had been infected.

And of those, at least five had already spread the bug to at least several other users.

Meanwhile back in Little Rodentia, Tommy was being told to shut down the computer and come to dinner. He had remembered to re-activate the anti-malware apps, but by then it hardly mattered. Later that evening his father, an accountant, went upstairs to use his computer—which used the same DSL line as his son's—sending out an email with an attached file to several clients. Everyone who clicked on it immediately set the exploit free on their hard-drives...and in this instance, none of their anti-virus programs spotted it. Malware programs share at least one trait with vampires; if they enter your domain by way of an invitation, they become nearly impossible to expel.

For the next two hours, the trend continued, with the bug hopping from one computer to another, sometimes several at once. Every now and then, it would be caught and quarantined by an anti-virus app; most of the time it was not. By the end of the first hour, the malware had gone international, by the end of the second, it was a global phenomenon.