She Left Me Breathless by Trin Denise Read Free Book Online Page A

taking a sip. “So, in order to pull it off, Largent took advantage of a logic flaw in the computer programming. He designed an automated script program that set up 58,000 fake accounts and when the companies like E-trade deposited the funds, Largent then transferred the money into his own account.”
    “How’d he get caught?” Sydney asked.
    “The brokerage houses discovered it and contacted the authorities and that’s when the United States Secret Service and the FBI got involved. Now the kicker here is that Largent did not do anything illegal, at least not in theory by setting up the accounts. None of the companies involved specified any limitations on how many accounts a customer could open but the Department of Justice ended up charging him with fraud.”
    Sydney frowned. “Okay, if what he did wasn’t illegal then how could they charge him for a crime?”
    “The Assistant United States Attorney, Matthew D. Segal, who is a prosecutor in the office’s Computer Hacking and Intellectual Property unit or what’s known as C.H.I.P., claimed Largent used false names, driver’s license, etc. and that constituted fraud. I personally think his arrogance was his undoing. You see, some of the names he used were cartoon characters and comic book heroes.”
    “Bugs Bunny opening an account would definitely raise a red flag,” Sydney laughed.
    “In 2009 he pleaded guilty to two counts of fraud and was sentenced to fifteen months in prison and ordered to pay $200,000 in restitution.”
    “Did he say why he did it?”
    “He wanted to pay off his credit card debt and he didn’t think he was doing anything wrong, legally he wasn’t, but morally and ethically he was.”
    “If he was that talented why would he waste his time doing something illegal?”
    “That is the same question the judge asked before sentencing him. My guess is that it was an adrenaline rush, like pulling one over on big brother. If he had used real names, it’s hard to say how long he could have gotten away with it. Probably years, maybe forever.”
    Sydney sat up in her chair, resting her elbows on her knees. “Okay, I think I have a pretty good idea now of what and how the Salami Technique works, so how does it all pertain to us?”
    “I found the problem when I ran a beta test on the upgraded billing system program. When I loaded the programs, I created a mirror image of both systems so I could run them simultaneously for a step-by-step comparison. What I found was a discrepancy between the amount billed to our customer’s invoice and the amount our customer’s actually paid to Welsh.”
    “If you’re telling me that our customer’s were charged more than they should have been due to embezzlement, this could be a public relations nightmare. Our stock will go into the toilet,” Sydney said, shaking her head. This is the last thing she needed to deal with right now.
    “The invoices that our customers received showed the correct amount they owed.”
    “I don’t understand,” Sydney said, her brows furrowing.
    “Someone with highly sophisticated programming skills accessed our billing system software and used a backdoor in the program to rewrite several lines of code. They set up several logic algorithms so that when a customer sent in their payment for the invoice and our customer service representative marked it as paid in the system, the program would kick in and round down to the nearest dollar. The change that was left over was then transferred into a separate account and the invoice billed in the system was automatically changed to reflect that amount. What they did, I mean the way they rewrote the program, is quite ingenious actually. I’ve never seen logic used in this fashion.”
    “Probably because you don’t think like a thief,” Sydney teased. “Okay, just so I understand what you’re saying, let me give you an example and you tell me if I’m on the same page as you.”
    “Shoot,” Caitlyn said, leaning back in her