US Drones infected with virus

  Quote

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 warzones.

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 U.S. 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.”

http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2011/10/virus-hits-drone-fleet/

First the unencrypted video crap, now this.... Is it just a proof of concept? Something of a trojan horse to be unleashed in the future? Seems like we don't even know what it's doing, if anything...

why they are sending every key stroke to a drone anyway

good platform

its the terminator machine virus

Clever. Whenever they hit innocent civilians, they can blame the virus.

gets shovel

  Quote

the virus has resisted multiple efforts to remove it from Creech’s computers, network security specialists say.... "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.”

Wow .... just wow - Are some organisations really this incompetent ?! Fire them all, and hire people that don't think that becoming a security specialist consists of visiting your nearby store to pick up a copy of Norton AntiVirus.

they should try entering safe mode and only then attempt to remove the virus :sup:

the future's to be like The Day After Tomorrow + Terminator + 2012 + Independence Day + The Matrix + Minority Report + Cloverfield + Bride Wars

+ Catfish

this is the type of thing that will matter once we're in space.

I don't know about you guys, but I find the idea of flying robot killing machines worrisome. Even more troubling is the idea of those same machines controlled by someone other than the maniacs that commissioned them.

If I could hack those things I would fly and each and every one of them into a mountainside.

  On 10/9/2011 at 7:31 AM, Wall Bird said:

I don't know about you guys, but I find the idea of flying robot killing machines worrisome. Even more troubling is the idea of those same machines controlled by someone other than the maniacs that commissioned them.

Trust me, you are not the only person who finds it worrisome.

They need more chrome and glowy red eyes though.

That can be the name of the drone bot net. 'chrome and glowy red eyes'. cheers.

I find this quite breathtaking, actually. I know that the military is not immune from cyber attack, but I'd have thought that the software running the Predator missions would've been airtight.

WarGames remake, staring lulzsec and Obama.

  On 10/9/2011 at 7:31 AM, Wall Bird said:

If I could hack those things I would fly and each and every one of them into a mountainside.

This.

These US robot soldier stories are super scary.

It'd be hilarious if they were used to attack U.S. targets.

  On 10/10/2011 at 1:33 PM, Higgins VanHiggins said:

I find this quite breathtaking, actually. I know that the military is not immune from cyber attack, but I'd have thought that the software running the Predator missions would've been airtight.

They think now that the department of defence put the keylogging script in there, to keep tabs on the unit.

Yeah their antivirus software is probably kicking up a fuss about the key logger that's probably been intentionally installed to log what the pilots are doing in the first place for mission debriefings and the like.

And it "keeps coming back" because the IT department have to keep reinstalling it as some numpty keeps removing it.

  Quote

But despite their widespread use, the drone systems are known to have security flaws. Many Reapers and Predators don’t encrypt the video they transmit to American troops on the ground. 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.

Iraqi insurgents living in the future now.

this sounds like a typical american gov BS as an excuse to scrap them for the new wave of super unmanned craft they've been testing in iraq and afganistan over the past few years which is why they're still way ahead in this department

mach 20 apparently that can reach anywhere in the world in well under an hour