In a dark room, a silent operative of GRiNCh flexed his hands and took a deep breath. This was it. All those supermarket customers whose card details he'd stolen, the luxury-car buyers forced to wait for months while a production line rebooted - mere guinea pigs. Today, he was bringing the big guns. Today, he would target innocent children. He clicked send.
Up in the Merry Season Division, Mary Christmas was finishing a call with Mark Winterberry, Chief Elf of the MSDIT. “Thank you, Mark - yes, everything's up to date. I did the latest patches yesterday. And that Tanium install was so quick! Wonderful to know your team has visibility of the new wrapping-scheme software. With all our research kit intersecting with the production systems, we like to say it’s worth making the list and checking it twice. Who knew orange and teal were this year’s top wrapping-paper colours? Anyway, thanks again. I know it’s a big responsibility keeping everything running - at least now our specialist equipment that costs more than my house is no longer running Windows 7.”
She saved her changes to naughty-nice.xls, locked her computer, and went in search of a mince pie.
Back in the gloom, the GRiNCh operative waited eagerly. The payout from this would be huge - the payday of paydays. Surely no one wanted to be responsible for ruining Christmas? The shame of letting down a world-renowned organisation would be unbearable. Fame and glory would belong to GRiNCh. He clicked send again for good measure and cackled in the green glow of his screen.
Mary finished her mince pie while looking out over the workshop below. Chris Parcels, Chief Operating Elf, waved her over. “Come take a look, Mary - we’re logged in and the new system is ready!”
She picked up a satsuma (she’d recently read articles from researchers in the medical sciences sphere on the benefits of healthy eating) and, to maintain nutritional balance, another mince pie.
Downstairs, Chris was buzzing. “Now, this fantastic software pulls the data straight from naughty-nice.xls…” He talked at length about productivity and streamlining. “And hey presto - perfect gift identified, bespoke wrapping generated, cut to size and everything! And don’t worry, this isn’t going anywhere near REDCap,” he added quickly. “Someone suggested it, and the ethics committee nearly cancelled Christmas.”
“Very wise,” said Mary. “We do need to safeguard the Christmas Reindeer Feeding.”
Chris nodded vigorously. “It’s such a busy time, data everywhere! Email, databases, address lists - but having the essentials in one place makes everything smoother. Oh! An email just came in. Probably the link to auto-update the lists.”
He clicked the notification. A message popped up. “Hm. That formatting looks odd. And the sender is unusual. Still, busy day, lots to....”
He stopped. Mary was staring at him.
“This is in cybersecurity training, isn’t it?” he sighed. “ELF Basics? Don’t click anything that looks suspicious, even if you do have half a billion presents to process.”
“Exactly,” said Mary. “Let’s call Mark.”
Meanwhile, the green glow in the operative’s room was losing its charm. Where was his access to Lapland’s systems? He refreshed. Again. Nothing.
Mark examined the message. “Good spot, Chris. This could’ve been nasty. We’ll quarantine it. All our systems are protected - Core HR, SAP Concur, and the vital research kit. We don’t want to cut that wrapping paper by hand again! Let’s check with Pete Jingles.”
The operative typed faster, convinced there must be a backdoor somewhere. These inventive types never managed their systems properly. He entered another string of code. And another.
Pete Jingles, Head of Elf Technology, sat in a room that smelled of hot chocolate and pine tree, illuminated by gentle fairy lights. All his monitors displayed a reassuring “Everything is OK” until one flashed red. He set down his mug.
‘UNAUTHENTICATED USER’
‘WARNING: ATTEMPTED ENTRY BY AGENTS OF GRiNCh.’
“Aha,” he said. “We’ve been expecting you. And you won’t be ruining Christmas today.”
At that moment, Mary, Chris, and Mark hurried in. “Chris received a worrying email,” Mary explained.
“Yes,” said Mark, “we’ve blocked the domain. Almost certainly GRiNCh. Seen anything odd?”
“You’re just in time,” said Pete. With a few taps, the warning blinked green and vanished. “There we go. Their little joy-stealing scheme ends here.”
The operative clicked and tapped frantically. He tried one code, then another, then a third - anything to prise open the door to holiday havoc. Then came a knock. He froze. He looked around for an escape route, but as a stereotype-compliant hacker, he was in a small windowless room. The door burst open, and the last thing he saw before everything went black was a large man in a red suit and black boots…
“Well done, team,” said Mary. “Nothing to worry about when my top elves are so cyber-savvy. Mince pies all round, business as usual!”
The operative slowly became aware of his surroundings. He was… upright? Swaying? His head jingled ominously. He opened his eyes. He was hanging in a giant Christmas tree inside a bustling department store. Children laughed. A tinny version of Jingle Bell Rock looped relentlessly. He looked down at himself. He was dressed as an elf. No. No, no, no. Not the children. Not the jingling.
Be like Mary (and Mark, Chris, & Pete) - sort your cyber, and gift yourself peace of mind this Christmas.