Page 46 of Paradigm

“I ordered you a drink, but I asked the waiter to wait to bring it over until you arrived so that it would be cold. Want a sip of mine while you wait?” Arlowe asked, pushing a beer toward her.

“Amstel?”

“They don’t have it on tap here, but they do have the bottles, so I thought I’d order it,” Arlowe said of the Dutch beer, which had been one of Eline’s favorites. “Not all that common around here, but you can find it in the liquor stores if you go there instead of a grocery store.”

“Good to know.”

Eline lifted the beer to her lips and took a sip. It tasted like home to her and reminded her of the times she used to go out with her friends. They couldn’t afford anything fancy, but a beer sometimes really hit the spot, just like this one was doing for her right now.

“So, Arlowe told us you had an issue at work?” Violet said.

“Someone hacked us and got access to our user data, yeah. They got their email addresses, which they then used to email from our account, pretending to be the company. It was pretty good work. They got a better email open rate than we usually do, and they got people to click on the link inside the email, where they told them that we were giving away a service that we don’t even offer. All they had to do was confirm the credit card number on their account and update some other information. It looks like they got about three percent of our customer base to do that, so… about three thousand people.”

“Wow!” Stella said.

“They put some malware on the email, too, so if people clicked the link, even if they realized that it was fake and didn’t put any credit card info in there, the hackers still got that. We’re going to be dealing with this for a while, but it’s about ten thousand people in total that we’ve been trying to reach out to, and I’m sure it’ll hit the data breach news soon if it hasn’t already. I wouldn’t know because I’ve been glued to my chair, trying to handle it.”

“That sucks,” Enya replied.

“Have you all ever had a breach like this?”

“No,” Arlowe replied. “But it’s different for us. We’re a language app. You’re dealing with gold and cash for it. I’m guessing all of your customers have to upload a credit card?”

“Yes, to get access.”

“Most of our customers sign up through an app store, so they technically pay them. If they do sign up through the browser, they can just use a free account without needing to add a credit card. We only store that info if they’re paid subscribers through the browser, and we’re as safe as we can be with that. One of our biggest investors, Asset Capital, also invested in an information security company, so they hooked us up with a meeting with their CEO, and we use their stuff. Nothing will work a hundred percent of the time, but we also aren’t a company that a hacker would probably think would be worth it to hack. Of course, getting email addresses is different. If that was their aim, and they didn’t go after the credit card directly in your system, I could see someone trying that with us.” Arlowe looked over at Violet then and added, “Maybe we should put together some kind of email and page on the site proactively, alerting people to the possible scams that they might face and to remind them how to avoid them with some tips.”

“Not a bad idea,” Violet agreed.

“I can work something up if you can get me the tips,” Sarai said.

“I’ll start on it tomorrow,” Arlowe replied.

“Can we talk about something other than work?” Enya asked, and everyone around the booth, with the exception of Eline, turned to look at her in surprise. “What?” Enya added.

“You want to talk about something other than work? You?” Violet asked.

“What? I’m told I only ever talk about work.”

“Pretty much, yeah,” Arlowe said.

“We have two people at this table who don’t work for us. We should talk about something other than our company,” Enya suggested.

“But we were. We were talking about Eline’s,” Arlowe pointed out.

“And Stella is a consultant with us, so she counts,” Violet said, smiling over the table at her girlfriend.

“We segued from Eline’s thing into something of our own, and I just think that since we’re all hanging out like this for the first time in a very long time, and with Stella and Gabi this time, too, we should just catch up, or at least talk about something other than work.”

“Okay. Want to talk about your love life?” Sarai asked.

“I don’t have a love life, so that would be a pretty short conversation. In fact, it’s over already,” Enya stated.

“We could talk about how to get you one,” Gabi suggested. “Chase has a cousin whom I haven’t met, but he says she’s great. She’s thirty-six, teaches high school history, and loves dogs. He mentioned to me that she’s single.”

“Who’s Chase?” Eline asked Arlowe quietly.

“One of Gabi’s friends. He got her to move here in the first place. He works for her old company. That got her here, working with us.”