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A computer virus has infected the cockpits of America's Predator and Reaper drones, logging pilots' every keystroke as they remotely fly missions over Afghanistan and other war zones.
The virus, first detected nearly two weeks ago by the military's Host-Based Security System, has not prevented pilots at Creech Air Force Base in Nevada from flying their missions overseas. Nor have there been any confirmed incidents of classified information being lost or sent to an outside source. But the virus has resisted multiple efforts to remove it from Creech's computers, network security specialists say. And the infection underscores the ongoing security risks in what has become the US military's most important weapons system.
"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."
The NSA was too busy reading your little sister's diary to fix it.
(Score: 2) by GreatAuntAnesthesia on Wednesday October 11 2017, @12:12PM (6 children)
So this virus is apparently benign... probably... but the next one might not be.
How credible is it that someone could take unauthorised control of one of these things? I mean they are designed to be operated remotely so in theory it must be possible. What failsafes are there? Is there a separate control channel that can override or disable the primary channel? How quick would the military be to send another aircraft out to intercept it? Is it total sci-fi paranoia to imagine Jahadi Jim (or any Anarchist Alex, or Mass-shooter Mick) hacking into an armed drone and taking it for a joyride / killing-spree?
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 11 2017, @12:25PM (1 child)
'apparently benign'
Cool, they found a new way to say 'what could possibly go wrong with that'.
Um, the keystroke logger is running code of the bad guys choosing on a machine where the keystrokes cause real things to happen.
So for example, what if the code starting operating in reverse and the bad guys started supplying the keystrokes.
Why is the computer hooked up so the code can phone home with it's booty?
Where is home?
Hopefully, they are capturing every packet in and out of the machine for further analysis.
(Score: 2) by HiThere on Wednesday October 11 2017, @06:26PM
No. What this means is they got a keylogger virus that wasn't even targeted at them, and they still can't remove it. I don't know how much faith to put in their assertions that no data has been leaked, but since the thing was probably trying to get credit card numbers or some such it probably hasn't seen anything worth trying to report.
Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.
(Score: 2) by frojack on Wednesday October 11 2017, @06:00PM (1 child)
What planet have you been living on these last 6 years?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iran%E2%80%93U.S._RQ-170_incident [wikipedia.org]
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 11 2017, @07:21PM
I'm not posting that because I don't want the NSA to know which planet I'm hiding on.
(Score: 2) by bob_super on Wednesday October 11 2017, @06:08PM (1 child)
I'm crossing my fingers that the "benign" virus activates during the next State of the Union, and sends every drone available to level the Capitol building to the ground.
I believe it would fit the operational rules of blowing up any group of highly dangerous individuals threatening the US.
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Wednesday October 11 2017, @07:06PM
From your mouth to god's ears.
Washington DC delenda est.