Before the internet, every virus infected air gapped devices.

I’m confused. Compromising a computer with a thumbdrive is cutting edge h4x0r tech?

“We put tools to create a backdoor as well as a file scanner and exfiltrator on a USB drive! We’ve defeated air-gapped systems!”

Ok

Before opening the article, I was thinking of something really, really sophisticated involving high-pitched sound and microphones (e.g. coil whine modulation through I/O processes), electrical inductance and electromagnetic fields carefully modulated to directly interfere on CPU instructions, Van Eck Phreaking (something like TempestSDR but fancier), precision-grade voltage meters to try and identify ongoing CPU instructions through quick teeny-tiny microvolt fluctuations over the power grid but, no, it’s the old fashioned way of malware transportation: portable disks.