Instead of staying in the shadows, Alex documented his findings, encrypted the report, and sent it to the utility company’s security team and the national cyber-defense agency. Within forty-eight hours, the utility company had forced a password reset for all affected employees, and the "shroudzero" list was flagged across major security firewalls.

After weeks of cat-and-mouse pursuit, they finally identified a lead that took them to an abandoned warehouse on the outskirts of St. Petersburg. There, under the guise of a cybersecurity conference, they found a gathering of hackers and cyber-traders. ZeroCool was to give a keynote speech on "The Future of Password Cracking."