Security Now 1076: FAST16.SYS

Security Now 1076: FAST16.SYS

From Total Leo (Audio) by TWiT

April 29, 2026 · 2h 35m

About this episode

The episode discusses a 21-year-old NSA rootkit that has implications for cyberwarfare and includes various technology-related topics.

What if your engineering calculations secretly sabotaged your nation's best efforts? This week, we reveal how a newly uncovered 21-year-old NSA rootkit quietly corrupted scientific research in hostile states and why it changes everything you think you know about cyberwarfare. Bitwarden's CLI hit with a supply-chain attack. Commercial routers in Iran fail shortly before the war. Meta logging all employee activity to train replacement AI. GRC's DNS Benchmark Release 5. Two miscellaneous AI thoughts. A bunch of terrific listener feedback. Unraveling the diabolical history of "fast16.sys" Show Notes - https://www.grc.com/sn/SN-1076-Notes.pdf Hosts: Steve Gibson and Leo Laporte Download or subscribe to Security Now at https://twit.tv/shows/security-now . You can submit a question to Security Now at the GRC Feedback Page . For 16kbps versions, transcripts, and notes (including fixes), visit Steve's site: grc.com , also the home of the best disk maintenance and recovery utility ever written Spinrite 6 . Join Club TWiT for Ad-Free Podcasts! Support what you love and get ad-free audio and video feeds, a members-only Discord, and exclusive content. Join today: https://twit.tv/clubtwit…

People in this episode

Hosts: Steve Gibson, Leo Laporte

Topics covered

  • cyberwarfare
  • NSA rootkit
  • supply-chain attack
  • AI
  • listener feedback
  • scientific research

Keywords

  • NSA
  • rootkit
  • cyberwarfare
  • Bitwarden
  • Meta
  • AI
  • listener feedback
  • GRC
  • DNS Benchmark

Sponsors

doppel.com, threatlocker.com, material.security, cyberhoot.com, guardsquare.com

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: NSA, Bitwarden, Meta, GRC, Club TWiT

Products: Spinrite 6

More episodes of Total Leo (Audio)

Explore listener stats, chart rankings, contacts and more on the Total Leo (Audio) podcast page.