This week we want to showcase one of the fictional companies that operates right next to Joe's workplace, Firestream. Like any good techno-hipster populated startup, it's got snappy catch phrases, beanbags, and a slide in place of the stairs. You will be able to explore this cool and snazzy environment to get some information across the network but first you need to infiltrate it.
Firestream is one of the companies that rents a space in the building where Joe works, they provide Internet services to an array of different local businesses, but they are just starting out, and with growth comes cut corners, and lax security practice, gotta get ahead of the competition somehow!
In terms of visual tone and styling, where Joe works is blue, cold, sterile and lifeless, reflecting the mundane reality of his day-to-day. In contrast, Firestream is loud, colourful and built around the kind of startup culture that has become popular in Silicon Valley and in fact exported (somewhat tastelessly) around the worlds growing tech centres now. Slides instead of stairs, motivational stickers and Post-its littered around and break rooms that are almost more important than the actual work. Will that make them complacent and start ignoring security?
The entrance to the office, do they ever crawl up the slide, or strictly go down?
Budget constraints forced them to rely on an engineer who spent his lunch hours doodling. He drafted a few mascots, and surprisingly one of them stuck. His name was... wait, what was it again? Oh, right... Streamy! Hey Streamy!
The Firestream team had some fun thinking of tips to throw around the office.
He has quirky catchphrases such as "Don't use the USB you found in the gutter!" to help employees stop their nasty habit of getting compromised. His creator had only a single lunch break to bring him to life before diving back into the Firestream servers, but we love him anyway.
hmmmm... tempting.
Because Firestream is a local tech company, they have a close relationship with the city's telecom providers, and are happy to take a way-leave payment from them to mount particularly useful and relatively unguarded antennae on their rooftop.
New-age Pomodoro technique - 30 mins working, 30 mins foosball, rinse and repeat.
At the time that Joe enters the office it's going to be a Saturday. This means that most workers will be away and the place will be swarming with guards. One or two poor engineers will be working in the server rooms, which means that Joe will probably have to find a way to get around them.
The workers are also completely addicted to coffee, good thing the toilet is right next to the main server of Firestream, maybe we can push them to drink coffee and change their work pattern to make our lives easier.
More to come on Firestream, it not only appears in OFF GRID: Stealth Hacking, but also in our cyber security training spinoff OFF GRID: Red Team (https://www.offgridthegame.com/red-team) - where they are a key to the puzzle of extracting Autonomous Farming drone firmware from Aldrenna as part of some agricultural industrial espionage... but that's a story for another time!
And as always, if you haven’t already - be sure to wishlist Off Grid on Steam - each wishlist makes a big difference to us, and we really appreciate your support!