C0NTRA - A Strand of Consciousness

Here is the story that ignited my interest in the subject.  My workflow typical starts here, with a brief report that serves as a jumping off point for my own OSINT reporting.   Story The Mechanisms of Financial Warfare : 'De-Banking' of the Czech Defense Industry Executive Intelligence Assessment The Czech Republic currently occupies a paradoxical position within NATO. While the government in Prague, led by the Fiala administration and Minister of Defense Jana Černochová, has positioned itself as a vanguard of support for Ukraine—most notably through the "Czech Ammunition Initiative"—a contradictory reality exists within the domestic financial sector. The industrial base required to execute these strategic imperatives is being systematically asphyxiated by the country’s largest commercial banks. This investigation reveals a pattern of "de-banking"—the cancellation of accounts and refusal of financing—targeting Czech defense manufacturers and even the person...

New Infrastructure Discovery: Salt Typhoon  (APT) - December 2025 Analysis Recent telemetry and infrastructure tracking have identified a significant set of new network assets linked to the Chinese cyber-espionage actor known as Salt Typhoon (also tracked as FamousSparrow or GhostEmperor). This update provides a breakdown of recently observed domains, their operational timeframes, and the low-density IP addresses utilized for Command and Control (C2) or staging operations. Executive Summary Salt Typhoon continues to demonstrate a high level of operational security, frequently cycling through low-density IP addresses and utilizing domains that mimic legitimate business or technical services. The infrastructure identified in this report spans from late 2021 through mid-2025, suggesting long-term persistence and planning for various campaign phases. Infrastructure Breakdown Below is the detailed list of domains and associated network artifacts. Domain Observation Timeframe Related IP...

The Stealthy Assassin: An In-Memory Rootkit Philosophy GITHUB REPO WITH ALL RELEVENT FILES A Historical Perspective on Fear and Stealth For those not well-versed in history, one of the most daring letters of all time was sent to Stalin from Josip Broz Tito, the leader of the former Yugoslavia. It read: "Stop sending people to kill me. We've already captured five of them, one of them with a bomb and another with a rifle. If you don't stop sending killers, I'll send one to Moscow, and I won't have to send a second." Knowing Stalin's reputation, few would dare make such a threat. Tito lived to the age of 87, and reports of assassination attempts ended after that letter. He was one of the few who scared Stalin enough to back off. When I considered the stealthy assassin this rootkit could be, only one name came to mind: Tito . The Shift to In-Memory Methodology For a while now, malware has been moving toward an in-memory-only methodology. It is obviously easie...