James took a step back and admire the desktop that he just built. "I hope this is the last time I buy another computer, James said. He then powered it on, which displayed an 'Acer' logo, before attempting to boot. Then there was an error.
"What the hell? Oh," James knew what happened. "No operating system found" the error displayed at the top-left corner of his monitor. Obviously, the hard drive was not loaded with an OS before, which James did not worry about. He never wanted to use Windows anyway.
He promptly opened his damaged PC's cover and located the hard drive, and it was not soldered along with others parts, which was a huge relief for James. He promptly unplugged the SSD connected the device with a SATA-to-USB cable and booted the drive directly to his desktop.
After it booted successfully, James downloaded a clone tool and copied the entire OS along with its content to his desktop hard drive. After it was done, he wiped off the data from the SSD and shoved them under his bed.
At about five minutes later, his desktop was up and running. He immediately logged on to the freelancing site and checked for any new messages, and sure enough, there were thirty-three new message requests. James groaned painfully, but he couldn't do anything, so he immediately started work and try to finish all of them in the shortest time possible.
-- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- --
"This message is confusing. What does this guy mean that I should reply to his message immediately, was someone after him?" James asked as he stared at a message that stood out among other messages. This person did not even tell him what he wanted him to do, James wondered, but when he looked at the incentive, he was instantly intrigued.
"$5000, for just a web app?" James was astonished. This is not a scam, right? James immediately messaged the person and purposefully send a tracking link. He wanted to know where the person was messaging him from.
A few minutes later, the person replied, and the message reads:
Hello Mr Simon, I would like to thank you for replying to this message, let me just get to the point.
I would like you to fix a web application that is currently on the verge of collapse [click this link to redirect to the website]. It has come to my attention that the software had a lot of security holes. Let me explain briefly.
There have been reports that the app database was attacked recently, and the intruders carted away all the credentials stored there. This action affected the company a lot, so unless this was fixed, it cannot keep running.
Be thankful that you are reading this message from me because I was informed of your work from a friend, so if you think you cannot do this work, there is no need to reply to this message, however, if you can do anything to improve the security, it would be much appreciated. Again, the link is here [click here]."
James finished reading the message and pondered. $5000 was a lot of money. He could do this in less than an hour, but still, he was still wary. First, why would this person redirect him to go to a link, twice? Usually, all the clients he worked with usually send the files and documentation that James needed to get the work done, but this person wants him to go to a link. Sounds a bit suspicious.
The person clicked the link that James set, and the message was coming from a building in New York. "WebFace Corporation, huh? Is that the company you worked with? James thought. When searching for the company name, it was registered on Google Maps, which further validated the person's location too.