@Klaatu_Veratta_Nectarine many Windstream users blamed the ISP for the mass bricking. They said it was the result of the company pushing updates that poisoned the devices - After eventually determining that the routers were permanently unusable, Windstream sent new routers to affected customers. Black Lotus Labs has named the event Pumpkin Eclipse - malware took out the routers connected to a single autonomous ASN, & unnamed ISP

@Klaatu_Veratta_Nectarine The actor took deliberate steps to cover their tracks by using commodity malware known as Chalubo

https://news.sophos.com/en-us/2018/10/22/chalubo-botnet-wants-to-ddos-from-your-server-or-iot-device/

rather than a custom-developed toolkit. A feature built into Chalubo allowed the actor to execute custom Lua scripts on the infected devices

As for a test 😏 all malware attacks are kinda a "test" in ways for future "operations" you could say...

@Klaatu_Veratta_Nectarine Black Lotus Labs representative said in an interview that researchers can't rule out that a nation-state is behind the router-wiping incident affecting the ISP. But so far, the researchers say they aren't aware of any overlap between the attacks and any known nation-state groups they track.

@ecksmc I'm just saying. I told all my kids to stock up enough water, cash to cover purchases and basic supplies for like 3 months in September just in case credit cards/supply chain/ other fuck ups occur prior to election. Because can we trust these fuckers? NO. The former guy tried to execute the whole line of succession to presidency. It's probably fine. But yeah.

@Klaatu_Veratta_Nectarine @ecksmc Thinking about how this could be a test (like Russians with Crimea before invading Ukraine) and could US voting machines be impacted and/or require greater security than is already present. 🧐

@ACG2 @ecksmc Not even necessarily voting machines. Could do a lot of things to bring things to a standstill. I have concerns.