When things go wrong keep it quiet? What the hell were these people thinking?

coachisright.com ^ | OCTOBER 15TH, 2011 | Jim Emerson, staff writer

[jmaroneps37]

For the last two weeks Air Force computer specialists have been battling a computer infection of ground based computers that control drones operating over the Mideast. The administration specialists at Creech AFB, Nevada wanted to keep the incident quiet till they could eliminate the virus by themselves.

Instead of asking for help the command was overwhelmed by a virus that couldn’t be easily removed. Because of the time wasted it may take a while before the extent of the infection is known and what systems have been compromised.

Keylogger

The virus affecting the ground stations was a “keylogger” virus. A keylogger is an almost unnoticeable spyware that monitors key strokes and control clicks and sent the information to an external host computer. This virus had been found on several unclassified and classified computers. As of this time investigating officials haven’t determined how the virus was introduced into the network. Because of the time wasted in trying to remove the infection the so-called smoking gun will be difficult to discover.

The keylogger virus on the Creech computers are most likely Kernel-based or rootkit based virus which are most sophisticated and the most difficult to remove. The virus was most likely delivered by a Trojan that is behaving as a benign file.

To date it is not known if the virus has damaged any systems or transmitted recorded keystroked to an external host. Such an attack should of have been reported to the 24th Air Force, Cyber Command, but it wasn’t. The Air Force needs to know that one of its vital systems has been compromised.

How did Cyber Security know?

The Air Force’s cyber security specialists were surprised ……. learned about the virus infection in the pages Wired.com.

The Air Force’s cyber command had to admit……

[SunkenCiv]

Dangerously incompetent:

"Nonsense! My plans are working perfectly!"