This was an awesome read!

Oh shit we making beans again?

🫘

So far, we haven’t been able to trace back to the initial compromise vector in the campaigns seen in our telemetry.

They hypothesize that attaching a compromised USB drive to an air gapped system is to blame. That seems to be a well known vector at this point. Does it matter much what tool is used to copy data once it’s in?

Reminds me of a classic bit from a comedy podcast (My Brother, My Brother, and Me) https://youtu.be/6YqXXBKBPRI?si=_Bmjlr2LIQh56Fhi

Early days is one thing, but if this is the entirety of the code

# WIP

Then there isn’t much to have a discussion about…

You had it until the end. Glass has an amorphous structure, not crystalline, but is still very much a solid.

TL;DR: Magnets. China makes almost all of them so any time we see something that might replace rare earth metals we get excited. In this case because a group made improvements to our ability to synthesize tetrataenite, an iron-nickel alloy, by adding phosphorus.