Transportation Ministry data breach

In 5 BBY, a data breach occurred at the Transportation Ministry's headquarters on the planet Lothal's Capital City. This data breach was perpetrated by Merei Spanjaf, a slicer who was the girlfriend of Zare Leonis, an Imperial cadet and secret rebel sympathizer. Leonis was looking for his sister Dhara Leonis, a cadet at Lothal's Academy for Young Imperials, who had disappeared the previous year under suspicious circumstances. Due to their close friendship, Spanjaf agreed to help Leonis find his sister.

Spanjaf had developed a computer program which allowed her to access the insecure top levels of the Empire's data network on Lothal. However, she was still unable to access any classified information on Dhara. At her school, the Vocational School for Institutional Security (V-SIS), Spanjaf met a classmate named Jix Hekyl who put her in touch with Yahenna Laxo, a crime boss who ran the Gray Syndicate, a local crime syndicate. Laxo agreed to supply Spanjaf with three snooper programs in exchange for employing her services as a courier. After learning from her father, Gandr Spanjaf, that government institutions were vulnerable to physical intrusions, she hatched a plan to infiltrate the Transportation Ministry's headquarters, which was a back door to the Imperial data network on Lothal.

Disguised as a Phelarion School student, Merei entered the Transportation Ministry headquarters under the guise of doing fundraising activities. Feigning a toilet break, Merei planted the snoopers at various locations throughout the building. This data breach brought Merei closer to her goal of finding information about Dhara. With the aid of Zare and the rebel infiltrator Dev Morgan, Merei obtained an Imperial decoder, which allowed her to access Dhara Leonis' file. After creating a fake Imperial Security Bureau account, Merei discovered that Dhara had been forcibly inducted into a secret Imperial program known as Project Harvester.

Despite Merei's best efforts, her data breach did not go unnoticed. While two of the snooper programs had deleted themselves, Imperial data security experts had managed to freeze the third snooper since it had been loaded onto a network terminal with a faulty chronometer. Merei's problems multiplied when she learned that her mother, Jessa, had been put in charge of the Imperial team charged with investigating the breach. With Jix's help, Merei attempted to elude the Imperial investigators by tampering with her school photo, attempting to delete her repeater service account, and framing the Gray Syndicate. Following the arrest of her friend Jix, Merei and her parents were forced to flee offworld into hiding with the help of Old Jho and the Spectres.

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