What if they hide the real boot location on a USB stick? i.e. the USB stick contains a copy of the OS, and it boots normally, except that the USB copy enables the wireless connection, and includes a small boot loader, or even a simple function to retrieve counting instructions (that replaces an existing one that does something innocuous). Once the system is up, it watches for a signal from the network, and then down loads the nefarious SW.
Easy way to avoid anyone seeing a boot order message, or an abnormally long boot time.
What if they hide the real boot location on a USB stick? i.e. the USB stick contains a copy of the OS, and it boots normally, except that the USB copy enables the wireless connection, and includes a small boot loader, or even a simple function to retrieve counting instructions (that replaces an existing one that does something innocuous). Once the system is up, it watches for a signal from the network, and then down loads the nefarious SW.
Easy way to avoid anyone seeing a boot order message, or an abnormally long boot time.