A tiny 12 KB Windows backdoor, one victim, and a dead domain

(Presented by State of Statecraft: A security and intelligence conference that brings together multiple disciplines, backgrounds, and nationalities to share research into the covert activities of nation-states and other malign actors.) Three Buddy Problem - Episode 109: The buddies dig into a new White House memo handing vetted private companies real offensive cyber authorities, and Costin explains why a stack of ransomware takedown cases has been sitting on a shelf waiting for exactly this. Plus, a tiny 12 KB Windows backdoor found on one machine with a dead C2, the mercenary outfits quietly living inside telcos, and why Google continues to flounder in the race for AI dominance. Cast: Costin Raiu, Ryan Naraine and Juan Andres Guerrero-Saade Timestamps: 0:00 Introductory banter 0:58 State of Statecraft, and a late CFP window 3:24 The White House offensive hacking memo 6:37 "Hack back" is the wrong frame for what's being authorized 11:20 Ransomware cases sitting on the shelf 17:01 The million-dollar bond and who can realistically play 22:29 Where DPRK crypto theft falls under the new definitions 28:15 Would TLP Black take a contract? 36:55 Gen Digital's 12 KB backdoor hiding its C2 in desktop.ini whitespace 46:57 Passive DNS, registration patterns, and pivoting on a dead domain 57:32 Feeding a one-off find back into detection engineering 1:02:14 Metador, Mafalda, and the mercenaries who love telcos 1:17:07 Armored Likho and what "Western APT" really means 1:28:16 The IOC market, private reporting, and CTI’s matching problem 1:58:10 Google's culture problem, the weekly model churn, and Patch Tuesday math