The 3rd Corp War

Military: War

Unknown cyberterrorists attack the networks of Corporations worldwide, causing billions of eb worth of losses.

The Third Corporate War was another milestone in Corporate warfare because it was fought almost entirely in the NET. Almost. Hostilities began when financial examiners from the Los Angeles Chamber of Commerce uncovered a confidence scheme being engineered by certain investment counselors at Merrill, Asukaga, and Finch against private investors, using the Rothstein Fund (a subsidiary of the Bank of New York) as leverage. They notified the District Attorney's office, which began an investigation the next day.   The Rothstein Fund, angered by MA&F's duplicity, and not wishing to get dragged down in the investigation, turned everything they had over to the DA's office. They also hired local street Netrunners to begin probing MA&F's data fortresses in search of the truth. MA&F's administration took this move by their former ally as a direct attack. They immediately countered by stepping up NET security and unleashing their own Netrunners to launch an assault on the Rothstein Fund, first hitting Rothstein's financial clients. Then MA&F strike teams turned their attention to actively destroying Rothstein computer systems, which escalated the fighting still further.   For several days, the situation was a confused melee. Data fortresses became armed camps as everyone nervously watched to see what would happen next. Netwatch responded by limiting NET access and cracking down on computer crime, making several sweeps resulting in numerous arrests and flatlines.   When both the Rothstein Fund and MA&F decided to take their conflict to Meatspace, they began hiring mercenaries. During a 12-hour period, short pitched battles were fought in LEO and on Earth, all to destroy the physical locations of the enemy's NET communications gear. These battles ended with considerable loss of life and millions in material destruction. The next six months consisted of endless NET raids, most of them inconsequential and indecisive. Indeed, more damage was done during the 12 hours of actual fire fights (that commo stuff is expensive) than during the entire remainder of the conflict. When it was over, the Rothstein Fund ceased to exist as single entity. MA&F turned the corpses of two of their executives who had started the whole mess over to the Los Angeles District Attorney's office. They also got stuck with the bill for damages done in Low Earth Orbit and on Earth.   By this time, the idea of Corporate conflict shocked no one, although several analysts were surprised the war lasted as long as it did. That the conflict took place mostly in the NET was rather unusual, and it sparked a couple dozen theories by various pundits that perhaps this was the new way Corporate wars would now be fought. But still others maintained that, much like the infantry in military doctrine, Solos would never go out of style.