The Most Mysterious File On The Internet

In an internet cafe, several rows of computers breathe loudly with only a fan mounted on the ceiling. Locals and soldiers sweat as they browse the internet. In the height of summer, the heat of Kabul is not easy to handle, even for the Afghans. The doorbell rings. A soldier walks in. He patiently waits for his turn at a

computer. Finally, a chair frees up. He sits down and logs in, checking his emails, Skype messages, and news. Nothing important, mostly spam. He reaches into his pocket and pulls out a USB stick. He plugs it in. A folder opens automatically. There it is, his military plan for the week. He scrolls through the PDF file,

nothing but bureaucratic BS. Very ordinary, very mundane. Dizzy from the heat, he stands up, unplugs the USB, and turns off the computer. The soldier has just made a huge mistake, perhaps the worst of his career. His USB is no longer mundane. It is a vessel, and in a few hours, he will get back to work and plug it straight

into his professional network. And in that moment, everything will begin. The US military will suffer its biggest breach in history. A network of roughly 15,000 networks and 7 million devices will be pierced by a beast. A beast with an unknown origin, destination, and mechanism. A wild creature that even 17 years later, we

still know little about. The beast's name is Agent BTZ, and this is the story of the most mysterious file that was ever discovered on the internet. >> [music] >> In the summer of 2008, a Finnish researcher named Mikko received a malware sample to analyze. [music] At the time, USB malware was pretty common, and the specific worm seemed