Comment by midjji
5 years ago
Every time I read these stories I wonder if they arent, just that, stories, then I realize it would be kinda fun to create one of these lowlevel compiler infecting things, and realize nah there are atleast a few out there written for shits and giggles. If nothing else, just because of the stories.
The best way to do a modern rendition would be to couple it with some sort of infrastructure vulnerability like a package-squatting attack or similar, so it has a chance to infiltrate for at least a little while before getting killed.
The point would be to have it simply persist - and ideally for a little while too - but do nothing useful other than for example allocate an additional string on a local stack somewhere or something.
Absolute best case scenario would be to announce its existence one year after successful infiltration. :D