Read Indispensable Party (Sasha McCandless Legal Thriller No. 4) for Free Online Page A

theft, but the focus there is more on sterility and cleanliness,” Grace
said.
    Sasha thought for a moment, then
she asked, “What about your computer systems? Are they centralized?”
    “Yes.” Grace nodded and was about
to continue, when they heard a bump against the door.
    Sasha looked up to see Connelly’s
silhouette through the frosted glass door. He was turned to his side, juggling
two mugs and his key card. She stood and started for the door, but Grace strode
past her and pulled it open for him.
    “That freaking card reader . . .”
he trailed off, shaking his head at the unnecessary security, and smiled his
thanks to Grace.
    Sasha stood halfway between the
door and the couch, feeling about as useful as the card reader.
    “Here you go. Strong and dark,
like you like it,” Connelly said with a grin as he handed off one of the mugs
to her.
    “Thanks.” She trailed him back to
the couch and sat next to him.
    Grace waited for them to get
situated with their mugs. Sasha took a long sip of coffee. Hot, and, as
promised, strong and dark.
    She took another swallow then
placed the mug on the side table to her right and picked up the notepad she’d
stolen from Connelly’s desk.
    Grace looked at Connelly. “So, I
was filling Sasha in on the security at the various locations. She had just
asked about the computer systems. Should I continue or do you want to hear what
happened?”
    Connelly combed a hand through
his thick, ink-black hair, making it stand up in short spikes. “I’m awfully
curious, but walk Sasha through the computer security first. She might need the
background.”
    Sasha could tell Grace was bursting
to tell them about the espionage, but she nodded and turned to Sasha.
    “So, all of our data is
centralized on one intranet, which we run out of this building. All the various
programs and databases for orders, purchases, shipments, everything resides on
the intranet. We can tell who’s accessed what and when. An individual employee’s
password only enables him or her to open or view documents that are required to
perform the functions of his or her job. So, for instance, a billing clerk
couldn’t open the marketing plan for one of our drugs.”
    “What about remote access to the
systems? Can employees log in from home?” Sasha asked.
    “They can, but it’s discouraged.
In addition, in order to do it, an employee would need to use a secure fob to
log in, which provides a series of random, frequently changing numbers. Once
logged in, access is terminated after four minutes of inactivity. So, if you
log in, start working, then step away to go to the bathroom or get a snack, you
would likely need to go through the sign in process again. It’s designed to
keep the data secure and to disincentivize people from accessing files
remotely.”
    Sasha nodded. It made sense.
Protecting the company’s sensitive data probably outweighed efficiency
concerns.
    Connelly and Grace shared a look.
    “What?” Sasha asked.
    Grace continued to stare at
Connelly but didn’t speak.
    Connelly turned toward Sasha. “Grace
has strong feelings about the security of our electronic data. Despite all
these safeguards, we are, in many ways, leaving our information wide open.”
    “How so?” Sasha asked.
    Grace piped up. “Many of our
research scientists—most of them, in fact—have come to us from academia. They
are in the habit of collaborating with colleagues all over the world by loading
information to the cloud. They seem to think no one other than their fellow
researchers would be interested enough to try to access it.” She shook her head
at the naivety.
    “You mean they use Dropbox or
something?” Sasha asked.
    “Dropbox, Boxy, Google Drive,”
Connelly confirmed. “We’ve tried to explain to them that those sites are not
sufficiently secure to house proprietary research and development material, but
they don’t seem to believe us. They argue that at their universities, they were
working in level four