That's reminiscent of when we first found out that if you opened up dram chips you could use them for imaging. Of course the scale at which this is done is extremely impressive.
250k is not a bad investment for a company doing "reverse engineering as a service" - say 1k a pop to extract the firmware. Naturally, a good business idea for somewhere in the world with less regulations...
In 5 years, either $400,000 or $50 and a hammer, depending on whether the core piece of the process aligns with the needs of some fast-growing consumer tech product like e.g. drones.
It needs to be updated. Modern evil planners don't even need a wrench since they already have most keys given to them in advance by everyone, including nerds
Not super practical, but neat attack
Why wouldn't a person build that into the heart of something important?
*currently