Reply #8: Unfortunately the malware was signed with the authentic (stolen) digital signatures of at least...

[Poll_Blind]

...2 major companies, used a "root-kit" to hide itself undetectably from the operating system and used at least 4 "zero-day" (unknown) operating system exploits in order to spread itself. In this case, the USB scanner itself would have become unknowingly infected with the worm and passed it to all other USB drives subsequently plugged into it after the infected one.

It's...a very cleverly-written piece of software backed up by multiple real-world digital identity thefts and world-class operating system and hardware exploitation knowledge. What it does, how it knows what to do and how it does it is so exotic that such a thing was guessed at but required a dedicated nation-state with healthy access to large gobs of money and extremely talented folks from many different fields to create.

PB