Chapter 467
The news from Karl and the unexpected incident had Trevor on edge.
"What is this? Some kind of surrender to Aubree?" he thought.
He had just typed out the rejection in the message box when Sophia’s call popped up, and his frown only deepened. "What does she want now? Bored out of her mind?"
Without hesitation, Trevor declined the call. He deleted two words from his drafted message and sent a simple, "Fine."
Compared to dealing with Sophia’s theatrics, he’d rather film some mini-dramas.
His agreement eased Karl’s tension. [Oh, and here’s the female lead for the mini drama.]
A photo of the female lead popped up, and Trevor stared at it for a few seconds, a little dazed. The girl in the picture looked so innocent and ethereal, dressed in a white dress. She was the very embodiment of a dream girl.
"Are there really girls so innocent out there?" he wondered.
Suddenly, he wasn’t so against the idea of this short drama anymore.
Not even days after the last crisis, before Alvin could finish his work and head to Südlichen Strand to reinforce their firewall, GrabCheap was under attack again.
"This doesn’t make sense. Last time, Irvin helped us rebuild a brand new defense wall, and we tested it. There’s no way they should break through this easily."
"Seriously, is this ever going to stop? Who’s the bastard with nothing better to do than target us? Looks like we’re pulling another all-nighter!" another person complained.
"Oh, probably another bluff like last time. They’ll attack a couple of rounds, fail, and bail."
The tech team joked among themselves, numb from the constant assaults.
No one noticed Irvin’s cold stare as the servers were breached, or the mocking smirk he wore at their dismissive comments.
Birgitte, assuming this was another scare tactic after the last large-scale attack, didn’t alert Aubree. "Irvin, can you trace who’s behind it this time?"
Irvin quickly schooled his expression into his usual smile. "I’ll try, Ms. Cherniavsky, but their skills are unpredictable. No guarantees."
"That’s fine. Just do what you can."
Of course, he wouldn’t trace it back. He’d make things worse.
"Ms. Cherniavsky, we have a problem."
"Users are flooding online, claiming the attack leaked their private data. They’re demanding an explanation."
"At first, it was just individual users complaining, but now cybersecurity experts are stepping in, claiming our servers are suspected of injecting malicious code into users' devices and leaking all their personal data."
"The worst part…" the assistant said, her voice trembling.
Someone finished for her. "We’ve been fully breached. The servers are crashing. User data is at risk."
A privacy leak? Panic was inevitable.
"The media is hyping this up online, claiming the attack harmed users, sellers, and the platform, with losses in the billions."
"Ms. Cherniavsky, Manchotech is on the line."
The servers, which had never collapsed before, sent the once-relaxed tech team into a frenzy.
Birgitte’s expression hardened instantly. This was their real goal – breach the servers, leak data, incite panic, and crash the stock.
GrabCheap faced its worst crisis. Users couldn’t log in. It was a death blow for a high-traffic platform. Every second of downtime meant millions lost. If repairs dragged on, the "hundred-billion loss" rumors might become reality.
"How did they find a vulnerability so fast? The tech team just reinforced everything. It makes no sense!" Birgitte thought, baffled.
By 8 PM, not a single person had left work. Six hours had passed since the attack, and Irvin’s team still hadn’t made any headway with the servers.
Birgitte had already called Manchotech for backup, but the situation remained dire.
Their tech support could only slow the attack, not stop it.
Social media was flooded with posts about the GrabCheap attack, and some users were absolutely furious. Things were looking really bad for GrabCheap.