2 min read

We’re Too Soft to Notice

We’re Too Soft to Notice
Photo by Dalton Abraham / Unsplash

NSA‑Level Cyber Espionage Is Now Normal

TL;DR: State-backed hackers from China, Russia, Iran (and even within the U.S.) are embedding backdoors into corporate cloud infrastructure and critical systems. Meanwhile the public shrugs, fixates on crypto drama, and pretends privacy is still real.


Here’s the Cold Reality

  • Bansky‑level cyber ops are the new normal: Governments are inserting spyware and backdoors into global cloud services—without public consent or oversight.
  • Cloud infrastructure, enterprise IT, telecom, energy grid systems: all subject to infiltration.
  • But no one actually frames it in geopolitical terms; it’s abstracted as “IT security” problems. Meanwhile China and others influence markets, elections, and policy.

Scattered Spider: Hacktivism Drowned by Ransomware

  • Scattered Spider (aka UNC3944, Oktapus) has evolved from teenage extortion hacks to full-scale espionage accomplice.
  • In 2025, a global advisory from FBI, CISA, Australian Signals Directorate, and others confirmed the group now uses DragonForce ransomware on VMware ESXi servers and exploits Snowflake instances for mass data theft oai_citation:0‡Cyble.
  • They pivoted hard: half scam kids, half data‑stealing corporate infiltrators. Writer-by-day hacktivism—dead. Money‑by-night corporate infiltration—everywhere.

Why We Imagine Hacking Still Means Something

  • Nostalgia for Lapsus$, SiegedSec, early hacktivism blinds us to the new truth: real dissent is now digital exile or corporate onboarding.
  • Groups that mattered died. Lapsus$ collapsed after teen arrests in 2022. The idealism died; only criminal enterprise remained oai_citation:1‡Wikipedia.
  • We still mourn for forgeries of rappers and political leaks, but ignore the silent war going on in our own infrastructure.

Society Fell Asleep While They Took Privacy

  • We swallowed AI promises: "helpful bots," "better security software," "free tools"—while our data became a geopolitical battlefield.
  • We love articles on new malware, but never ask who authored it or what homeland directive funded it.
  • Meanwhile nations weaponize cloud dependencies, and we debate TikTok bans like children deciding what shade of blue is best.

Atrocities Still Get Framed as An IT Problem

When major companies hit by ransomware lose billions—or supply chains collapse in retail stores—news frames it as file encryption errors, not state collaboration.
Scattered Spider-linked breaches at M&S and Co-op cost hundreds of millions—nothing framed it as state‑level sabotage. oai_citation:2‡theguardian.com


TL;DR

  • Governments embed spyware and backdoors in cloud systems worldwide.
  • Scattered Spider—once teenage extortion artists—breed ransomware chaos and corporate espionage.
  • Hacktivist rebellion? Dead or absorbed.
  • And we’re too numb, too distracted, and too complicit to see it.

What Needs to Be Done (No Guarantee Anyone Will)

  • Recognize that hacking isn’t just crime—it’s geopolitics.
  • Hold tech giants and governments accountable for cloud backdoors—not through press releases but through litigation, oversight, and boycott.
  • Demand transparency from intelligence agencies and software providers.
  • Stop treating IT intrusions as isolated crime events and start treating them as infrastructure war crimes.

We wanted crackdowns on trolls. We got nation-state control hiding behind subscription models and server updates.

Wake the fuck up.


Posted by someone still coding dissent—and watching the sky axis crumble.