According to his previous observations, the server for the official website is also located in Night City Hall, but similarly, it's provided by individual small servers connecting to the network, essentially not aiding him in hacking into the surveillance system.
However, Mercer's purpose for hacking into the Night City official website server was merely to find a springboard.
Perhaps it's been too long since a top hacker came to cause trouble here, or maybe it's because the data stored here isn't very valuable to Night City Hall itself.
Mercer used Venus's AI alongside himself to sift through vulnerabilities in the web data, quickly finding a system flaw that allowed him to infiltrate.
He first obtained admin permissions through the website, and then easily gained usage rights for the web server through the data entry point set up by those public servant programmers for convenient code modifications.
After deep diving, Mercer casually bypassed the dangerous red ICE detection program without alerting anyone, seamlessly connecting to the opposing server.
He quickly started searching for signals from the server, soon finding several laptops connected to this web server, selecting one that was unused, and swiftly cracking the laptop's ICE.
Afterwards, he employed the oldest and most effective hacking technique.
Using the computer at this workstation, he first stole user information and sent an email to a maintenance department employee.
[Stephen: My computer has a data error. Can you check what's going on? Here's a screenshot of the system error.]
Directly sending a file might raise suspicion, but if it's just a screenshot, most people wouldn't be too wary. Sure enough, the recipient opened the image without any caution after 30 seconds.
The image was Photoshopped by Mercer on the spot, appearing as a screenshot but actually being a disguised virus program that hacked into the recipient's computer the moment it was opened.
[Maintenance Worker: Dude, did you use the company computer to access the internet? You've got a virus!]
[Stephen: Damn, I was just watching some videos... Don't tell anyone, I'll format it now.]
[Maintenance Worker: Okay, you owe me a drink.]
[Stephen: Not today, next time, I'll contact you proactively.]
[Maintenance Worker: I'll remember that.]
Mercer chuckled, not knowing if Stephen would be baffled at that time, but it didn't matter as Mercer had already completed the task.
And taking advantage of the loaded image data while the maintenance department opened the picture, Mercer's little virus quietly nestled into the maintenance department's computer.
The so-called maintenance department is actually the internal network repair technician, whose computer has access to secure server permissions.
Mercer quickly logged into Night City Hall's security server using the opponent's permissions and opened a backdoor for himself.
By doing so, he gained permissions to control all devices connected to the security server.
Mercer swiftly surveyed the internal structure of the facilities using camera perspectives and attempted to control the elevator and other security facilities. After confirming operational ability, he easily exited the server.
Done.
When V acts tonight, he could effortlessly open the pathway from the backdoor to the underground server room for V, rendering all surveillance and security measures ineffective.
All he needed to do was save the identity ID of that network repair technician. By using his ID, he had sufficient permissions to accomplish all this.
When that repair technician receives the news and finds out his identity has been hacked and someone went to the underground third-floor server room, V would have already finished the job and vanished.
Checking the time, this entire operation only took Mercer eight minutes—including glancing at security server data and some employees' personal computer data.
No thief leaves empty-handed... You never know when you might stumble upon some unexpected gain.
In fact, Mercer did find some valuable information, stored on the network repair technician's computer.
[Leader: Last week NCPD mentioned delayed data synchronization; investigate it.]
[Repair Technician: Okay.]
[Repair Technician: It's a server cooling issue; the server responsible for transmission needs a new cooler. The CPU power is too high, our cooler can't handle it, causing some CPUs to burn and shrink slightly.]
[Leader: No solution then. Think of something; the budget's tight.]
[Repair Technician: There's no way; the last funding was only for server costs, not for cooling upgrades. This issue is inevitable. We could try scheduled overclocking to maintain efficiency, but it might shorten the server's lifespan.]
[Leader: Let it be.]
[Repair Technician: I suggest reporting to the higher-ups. Whether they read or not, it prevents blaming us when the server fails.]
[Leader: I understand. Thanks for your hard work.]
[Repair Technician: You've worked harder.]
At first glance, it's just an ordinary work dialogue file, but Mercer keenly sensed opportunities within.
NCPD regularly updates the data from the census database?
This means that if Mercer can hide certain data within the server's census data, he can lie in wait.
When NCPD updates their database, Mercer could easily use the hidden data to hack into the NCPD's data server effortlessly.