Forty-nine rules of the end times

Chapter 101 Social Engineering

Dozens of people are gathered in an abandoned building across the street from the hospital.

None of these people were wearing protective suits or masks.

Because they were all infected with the plague.

Red spots appeared on everyone's neck and shoulders.

Each person's eyes were filled with emotions such as anger, despair, and ferocity.

A crew-cut man stood in front of them, his expression ferocious, and said, "Everyone knows! Some people have antibodies in their bodies, and getting their serum can save the lives of infected people, but those thugs from the Bureau don't tell us! Why should we just wait to die after we get infected, while they get serum?"

"I only have one question for you!" the man shouted. "Those thugs brought a woman into that hospital across the street; she should have antibodies. There are only a few guards at the entrance, but we have dozens of men. Do you dare come with me to rob them?"

"Damn! We're about to die, what are we afraid of?"

"That's right, those of us who are infected will be gone within 24 hours. What's there to be afraid of when we're already like this?"

"Don't even mention a few armed guards at the gate, even if you put planes and tanks at the entrance, I'd still go for it! Getting shot to death is better than dying from a blood explosion!"

The infected people were indignant, and not one of them objected.

Many of them were originally staying in the gathering point, but were kicked out after others discovered they were infected.

Some people wanted to seek official assistance, but officials politely informed them that they could not provide assistance, but could only help with euthanasia, allowing people to pass away without pain.

Some people agreed, but many more refused!
Even if they knew they would bleed to death within 24 hours, how many would dare to end their own lives beforehand? Even euthanasia is still death!

When faced with the high wall of death, few people would willingly crash into it.

Therefore, some of these infected individuals used local forums and other channels to connect and gather together.

Others may look down on them, but they don't hold grudges against each other. They're all infected, so who can look down on anyone else?
After gathering together, someone suggested doing something extraordinary before the blood outbreak, which garnered a lot of support. But soon, someone learned about the existence of the antibody serum through a relative.

This person's relative's son works for the Emergency Management Bureau and is a frontline operator, so he knew the information. This relative, wanting to show off, told the person.

In his anger and shock, the man revealed the news to the infected group.

Upon learning of this, while everyone was furious, they also saw a glimmer of hope for survival—if they could receive the serum injection, they could live!
So the group dispersed, each taking up positions in front of various hospitals in the city, hoping to stumble upon something. Unexpectedly, they actually succeeded today; a woman suspected of having antibodies was brought into the hospital.

The person keeping watch immediately called others, and soon dozens of infected people gathered there.

"Alright, since everyone's got guts, there's no need for further discussion! I—"

The leader, a man with a crew cut, was speaking when he suddenly vomited blood, followed by blood coming from his eyes and ears.

Everyone else was stunned, including the crew-cut man, who then gave a bitter laugh: "We had just found hope, and yet..."

Snapped!
Before he could finish speaking, he suddenly burst into blood and collapsed, dying instantly.

Several people standing near the crew-cut man were splattered with blood, but they simply wiped it off.

Then another person stepped forward: "As you can see, time waits for no one. We need to act immediately."

Undoubtedly, when a group's goals are highly aligned, even if the leader dies, a new leader will immediately emerge.

Furthermore, the death of the crew-cut man only fueled the ferocity and impatience of the crowd—they didn't want to delay for even a second longer, because no one knew if they would bleed to death in the next second!

At the entrance of the hospital.

The armed squad members, dressed in protective suits, were chatting amongst themselves.

What are your plans now that the rules are over?

"What other plans do we have? We just have to follow orders."

"Judging by the time, it should be almost time for us to take turns resting, right?"

"Not necessarily... Don't forget that after these rounds of rule changes, our team has lost quite a few members. We've been recruiting new members from the community recently."

"I heard about this from the guys in the training unit. They said that there are a lot of new recruits going to practice shooting every day."

As the group was talking, something was suddenly thrown from a distance.

"Dang Cang."

The object landed not far from the group, and when they turned to look, it appeared to be a metal lighter.

They looked in the direction from which the object had been thrown and saw a hooded man standing not far from the hospital gate, his hands clasped together in prayer.

"burst!"

Boom! ! !
The lighter immediately exploded, sending metal fragments flying everywhere. One person was instantly cut, and the protective suits of several others were punctured!
An attack?!
The armed squad members were shocked, not expecting anyone to dare attack them while they were armed, and they quickly raised their guns to return fire.

However, this guy with the ability to detonate metal objects was just trying to attract attention. At the same time the lighter exploded, dozens of people suddenly rushed out from the other side, yelling and charging!

Some of them used props, while others, without props, threw stones or glass bottles.

The armed squad members were caught off guard by the sudden group attack. Two of them were immediately knocked to the ground by projectiles, while the remaining three retreated while firing their guns. One of them also urgently notified his teammates in the hospital.

Flames spitted out, and the dozen or so people at the front instantly fell to the ground and died. Those behind took the opportunity to close the distance, and the hooded man who had thrown the lighter and detonated it earlier took out a handful of small steel balls from his pocket and threw them over, then put his hands together again.

"burst!"

Pa pa pa pa pa pa pa!
All the steel balls exploded, and the remaining three members of the squad were injured and cried out in pain. The other infected took the opportunity to swarm in, knocked down the three, and seized their guns and weapons.

Having successfully taken down the five combatants guarding the gate, the infected were greatly encouraged. Everyone looked at the hooded man and praised him.

"Bro, you're awesome! It's all thanks to your ability!" "You can detonate metal objects? With such amazing skills, how come you weren't in the official department? What were you thinking, bro?"

The hooded man smiled weakly: "I can only detonate small metal objects now, and my mental energy limit is not high. These two detonations have almost exhausted my mental energy."

"Alright, we've taken down the ones at the door, there must be more inside! And they must have called for backup, we need to take them down and get that woman's serum as soon as possible!"

……

"……real or fake?"

After seven or eight hours of continuous work, the young hacker in the dimly lit room had gone completely berserk.

He never expected that he would spend so much time and use so many methods and tools to crack such a small, shabby website.

No matter how you try to penetrate or intrude, the final result will either be injection failure or inability to locate the IP address.

At this moment, the rudimentary interface of the "House of Ascended" website on his computer screen seemed to mock his incompetence.

"What a joke..." The young man stared with bloodshot eyes, "This little website made from a template has stronger defenses than those big companies?"

From a technical point of view, this is completely illogical.

The young man recalled a post he had read before, in which the website owner claimed his site "would never be tracked or hacked." At the time, he found it laughable, but now it seemed there was some truth to it.

The fact that even a top hacker like him couldn't hack into the site despite his best efforts demonstrates that the website's security capabilities are indeed extraordinary.

He believes that there are no more than ten hackers in the world whose skills surpass his. If you can defend against him, you can defend against the vast majority of network intrusions worldwide.

"That shouldn't be the case... How could such a small website use some kind of special technology?"

The young hacker was completely baffled, and finally decided to use his ultimate trick.

He logged into his registered account on the website and posted the first post in the entire "Chat" section.

Wow, this website is really great! Website owner, can I add you as a friend and we can chat?

The secret weapon is: social engineering.

The hacker who was once ranked number one in the world and was most admired by young people did not rely on network intrusion, but on physical intrusion in his ultimate battle to invade the Solomon Empire's homeland security agency!

That's right. The big shot first spent several months planning to get to know the deputy head of security at the security agency and develop a romantic relationship with him. Using this relationship, he got a job as a security guard within the agency.

He then used his position as a security guard to meticulously investigate vulnerabilities within the security organization. During this process, he married the deputy head of security, who even had a child with him… After four years, he finally found the internal vulnerability, obtained the key, and thus completed a full-scale intrusion and breach of the security organization.

The case shocked the entire cybersecurity community after it was made public. While this hacking mastermind was imprisoned by the Somali Empire, he also taught all hackers a lesson:
If you've exhausted all online methods and still can't hack a security system, try using social engineering offline. Because every system ultimately rests on people, and people have weaknesses; by breaking down the people at the key points, you can naturally break down the system.

At this point, the young hacker decided to pay homage to his idol by cracking the website's administrator's credentials in order to obtain the key to cracking the website.

Meanwhile, in her own shelter, Guan Tong received a notification from the website and saw a post from someone with the username "Mask," which even touched her a little.

His website has been online for more than ten hours, and finally someone posted the first message!
Looking at the post title, he clicked on it and replied: "Thanks for the recognition, let's chat in the forum."

He replied, and the other party replied again within seconds.

Mask: "Okay! Since I also have some knowledge of website building, I'd like to discuss some technical issues with the webmaster."

Technology related...

Guan Tongxin said that she didn't have much technical skill and that the website was basically set up with the help of AI tools.

However, if we were to be so blunt, it would undoubtedly affect the reliability of the website.

When users see a website owner claiming their site is built using AI and templates, their first reaction will be that it's unreliable. Once they have that impression, how can they possibly trust that your website is absolutely secure?
He thought for a moment and replied, "The technology I use is very special."

The young hacker on the other side had a bright idea when he saw it.

Sure enough, I knew he used special technology! I really want to know what it is...

He suppressed his intense curiosity and replied, "I wonder what kind of technology it is? Could the site administrator please tell me?"

Station manager: "This is inconvenient."

"……I knew it."

The young hacker knew it wouldn't be easy to get information out of him, so he thought for a moment and came up with another idea.

Masked Man: "Okay. But the UI of the website you're using seems a bit rough around the edges. I happen to be good at that, so I'd like to help you optimize it. Is that alright?"

Guan Tong narrowed her eyes slightly upon seeing this "masked" reply.

Offering help for no reason... Who would bother optimizing someone else's website interface when they have nothing better to do? That's hard work.

Is this guy trying to steal my technical skills? The problem is, I don't have any technical skills at all... The inability to locate intrusions is just a built-in network feature of the vault...

Guan Tong thought to herself: This is fine too. You want to work for me for free, why wouldn't I be happy to do it?

Website administrator: "How do you plan to optimize it?"

Mask: "Easy! I'll create a one-click optimization package and send it to you, webmaster. You can just load it onto your website!"

Station Master: "Okay."

"There's a chance!" The young hacker was overjoyed when he saw the site administrator's reply. "If I put a few Trojans in the optimization package and they aren't discovered, I should be able to infiltrate from the inside."

(End of this chapter)