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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: 4, Insightful) by jmorris on Wednesday October 11 2017, @03:59PM
Yup. Not saying Linux can't be hacked into, because it can. But running Windows means you don't care. No, airgapping the thing won't save you, as the government keeps relearning. As in this case, eventually people have to move information between the systems and that means they hook up a removable drive... and there goes the airgap.
The media always play along, covering up for Microsoft and the government's stupidity. They SHOULD be reporting it as a "Windows virus", clearly noting that this infected "WIndows PCs being used for classified work", etc. This happens in -every- story about security, if it infects Windows the hosts are "computers" or "PCs" but if it impacts anything else it tends to be loudly noted. This is how #FakeNews used to work, more sins of omission than commission. I miss those days.