Click the Pic Thank you, JoeProBono
Follow the Exciting Adventures of Gary the Snail!
Abolish FReepathons
Go Monthly
Planning to donate $10 or more? You can sponsor
one or more New Monthly Donors for no additional cost
FReepmail TheOldLady
Posted on 10/07/2011 11:19:43 AM PDT by PapaBear3625
An unnamed computer virus is compromising the security of U.S. Reaper and Predator drones as they fly missions in Afghanistan, Iraq, Yemen, and Pakistan.
Wired reports the virus was found about two weeks ago and hasn't kept the drone pilots at Creech Air Force Base in Nevada from conducting missions.
There haven't been any reports of classified data breaches, but the virus has resisted the military's best efforts to remove it.
(Excerpt) Read more at businessinsider.com ...
I can’t imagine this not being some form of sabotage.
In the summer of 2009, U.S. forces discovered “days and days and hours and hours” of the drone footage on the laptops of Iraqi insurgents. A $26 piece of software allowed the militants to capture the video.
I’m looking at you looking at me ...
Another Bradley Manning homo type probably did it.
That’s the classified side of the net...right? It has a high and low side.
checkHowever it has been breached by sneaker-net.
Just as the Israelis breached
the Iranian Nuclear network.
Is there ANY reason for this information to be made public?
In my world, once you were aware of the problem you would take steps to fix it, identify the source of the virus and institute procedures to keep this from happening in the future but you most certainly don't tell the world about the problem unless there is an ulterior motive.
Bird Flu.
None of this is good, that’s for sure.
I am wondering the same thing. Kind of like putting a sign on your house that someone stole all of your guns and ammo and that your vicious dog died. Sometimes silence is a good idea.
This is B.S.
In some ways I worry about the dependance of our military on high technology. Imagine a country like China knocking out the GPS satellite system on which our military depends for everything from navigation of ships to the targeting of weapons.
No personal portable media storage is permitted on DoD computers unless it’s been approved via the appropriate channels.
Getting personal thumbdrives, cd’s etc. APPROVED for use on a DoD computer is next to impossible.
Of course, if a moron decides not to follow the rules because they’re “special”, then all bets are off.
Could be your vicious dog is quite alive and well, mearly hungry & you want to give him a little treat.
Let’s assume that this report is accurate and that it is also true that a computer virus had a severe impact on Iran’s uranium enrichment facilities.
There is something about these kind of incidents that I just don’t understand.
Why would the people running systems that contain the software for sensitive military applications ever allow these systems to be connected to the Internet or to any device that could possibly introduce a virus?
As it also prevented the video transmissions to the troops in the field from being intercepted with radio-shack class home video gear...NOT.
I was tasked with a project for encrypting
all portable media for this reason.It was shelved as too expensive.
Unless they fill in the usb ports with gorilla glue
or remove them completely, and secure the cases against
tampering, this will always be a threat vector. As is
the hiring of people with relatives in Red China, Iran,
or other dodgy countries...
Maybe a channel is hung. We’ll do an IPL at midnight.
It could be easily solved by never using Microsoft
“China?”
Plobabry.
No system is totally secure. Especially if have one set up where you fly the drones from half way across the world.
Open systems going to be the first targets taken out in any real war.
Fixed it.
By JOHN MARKOFF and DAVID BARBOZA
Published: February 18, 2010
SAN FRANCISCO — A series of online attacks on Google and dozens of other American corporations have been traced to computers at two educational institutions in China, including one with close ties to the Chinese military
The story is significant, or was placed to get Wired site hits, or is total BS.
If this story has any military significance, it was put there by our military. If it has political significance, it was put there by politicians. Who on earth would want to discredit the finest military on the planet? Buehler, anyone?
Hell, our commander in chief is good buds with the black panthers and former weathermen terrorists, the white house is funding the communist 99 rallies, the atf is giving guns to drug cartels, the economy is intentionally in the crapper, and Wired publishes this? Right.
I vote BS, irrespective of the original source.
Libs are celebrating. Computers are amazing, but our over-reliance on them is going to bite us big time someday. And by big, I mean the entire military rendered useless, and the entire country crashing.
“Whats the matter with the military?Don’t they believe in using anti-virus programs? crying out loud.The NSA has enough programmers on it’s staff they should have the best anti-Virus software around.”
The big problem with trying to secure computers by isolating them, is that a computer is not too useful unless there's a way to get data from it to someplace else.
I would imagine that their choice of OS and the methods of transferring info around are going to undergo some review.
Nicely played.
Okay, thank you for the summary. I still don’t understand where the virus came from though. The other computer which downloads to the removable hard drive should also have been secure, right?
““We keep wiping it off, and it keeps coming back,” says a source familiar with the network infection, one of three that told Danger Room about the virus. “We think it’s benign. But we just don’t know.””
....and the cyborgs will start shooting in 3...2...1...
They obviously do have a communications capacity of some kind. And that must have been what was used to infect them. There must have been a drone downed, and they back engineered it. Yes this is clearly a national-sponsored attack.
And a challenge at each data interface The way to beat the virus is to use
an OS which is not affected by virii.
to a known authentication master key.
What type of engineer are you?
We do. But I'll lay odds that the operating system on the controllers is from the state of Washington.
Stealing keystrokes is not a big deal, but the possibility that the software might be on unauthorized computers is a big deal. They would know how the system is employed and controlled.
Microsoft PC for the cockpit and other These systems are developed by DISA, DoD spent millions of $ to DARPA Instead they use Microsoft which is It sounds like very sloppy operations.
Microsoft PCs for data and mission development.
which is overrun with script-kitties
who think Microsoft is a safe OS.
to develop a robust and attack proof
OS in the form of Berkeley Unix.
so poorly written it is virus ridden.
Thanks for the explanation. Is Sun Microsystems a UNIX based platform?
“An unnamed computer virus is compromising the security of U.S. Reaper and Predator drones”
Does that mean they will have to go back to “Reboot Camp”.
It seems this is a common problem for IT sec projects. That and the “it’ll never happen” determination.
One friend working for a gov’t contractor, when s/he reported that there were trojans on a network was told it wasn’t worth the effort to get rid of them because “they’ll just be back again tomorrow.”
“China?”
Plobabry.
***********
that powful!
NSA people should be competent enough to not have to rely on “anti-virus” B.S. If they can’t predict how their systems would be attacked, then they need to be replaced with some competent people who are more than just bureaucrats with management degrees. The military OTOH might have to look outside of its ranks if its culture doesn’t create enough of the appropriate experts. Granted, they depend on the private sector for a lot of things, that could easily be the weak link in the chain too.
>> >> reboot camp
>> groan...
LOL
Stuxnet was a worm, not a virus. If that's what this is, then Linux systems are just as vulnerable as Windows. The vulnerability is in the application, not the OS.
So much for Drones replacing human pilots.. It goes to show that we still have the need for pilots.. Imagine we have an air force of drones shut down by virus during a conflict??
IIRC it was Bill Clinton who loosened up the hiring to previously forbidden groups in sensitive defense areas.
He should have been subject to extraordinary rendition and then hung for treason, long ago.
NO cheers, unfortunately.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.