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

Quote :

"Exclusive: Computer Virus Hits U.S. Drone Fleet 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.” Military network security specialists aren’t sure whether the virus and its so-called “keylogger” payload were introduced intentionally or by accident; it may be a common piece of malware that just happened to make its way into these sensitive networks. The specialists don’t know exactly how far the virus has spread. But they’re sure that the infection has hit both classified and unclassified machines at Creech. That raises the possibility, at least, that secret data may have been captured by the keylogger, and then transmitted over the public internet to someone outside the military chain of command. Drones have become America’s tool of choice in both its conventional and shadow wars, allowing U.S. forces to attack targets and spy on its foes without risking American lives. Since President Obama assumed office, a fleet of approximately 30 CIA-directed drones have hit targets in Pakistan more than 230 times; all told, these drones have killed more than 2,000 suspected militants and civilians, according to the Washington Post. More than 150 additional Predator and Reaper drones, under U.S. Air Force control, watch over the fighting in Afghanistan and Iraq. American military drones struck 92 times in Libya between mid-April and late August. And late last month, an American drone killed top terrorist Anwar al-Awlaki — part of an escalating unmanned air assault in the Horn of Africa and southern Arabian peninsula. 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. The lion’s share of U.S. drone missions are flown by Air Force pilots stationed at Creech, a tiny outpost in the barren Nevada desert, 20 miles north of a state prison and adjacent to a one-story casino. In a nondescript building, down a largely unmarked hallway, is a series of rooms, each with a rack of servers and a “ground control station,” or GCS. There, a drone pilot and a sensor operator sit in their flight suits in front of a series of screens. In the pilot’s hand is the joystick, guiding the drone as it soars above Afghanistan, Iraq, or some other battlefield. Some of the GCSs are classified secret, and used for conventional warzone surveillance duty. The GCSs handling more exotic operations are top secret. None of the remote cockpits are supposed to be connected to the public internet. Which means they are supposed to be largely immune to viruses and other network security threats. But time and time again, the so-called “air gaps” between classified and public networks have been bridged, largely through the use of discs and removable drives. In late 2008, for example, the drives helped introduce the agent.btz worm to hundreds of thousands of Defense Department computers. The Pentagon is still disinfecting machines, three years later. Use of the drives is now severely restricted throughout the military. But the base at Creech was one of the exceptions, until the virus hit. Predator and Reaper crews use removable hard drives to load map updates and transport mission videos from one computer to another. The virus is believed to have spread through these removable drives. Drone units at other Air Force bases worldwide have now been ordered to stop their use. In the meantime, technicians at Creech are trying to get the virus off the GCS machines. It has not been easy. At first, they followed removal instructions posted on the website of the Kaspersky security firm. “But the virus kept coming back,” a source familiar with the infection says. Eventually, the technicians had to use a software tool called BCWipe to completely erase the GCS’ internal hard drives. “That meant rebuilding them from scratch” — a time-consuming effort. The Air Force declined to comment directly on the virus. “We generally do not discuss specific vulnerabilities, threats, or responses to our computer networks, since that helps people looking to exploit or attack our systems to refine their approach,” says Lt. Col. Tadd Sholtis, a spokesman for Air Combat Command, which oversees the drones and all other Air Force tactical aircraft. “We invest a lot in protecting and monitoring our systems to counter threats and ensure security, which includes a comprehensive response to viruses, worms, and other malware we discover.” However, insiders say that senior officers at Creech are being briefed daily on the virus. “It’s getting a lot of attention,” the source says. “But no one’s panicking. Yet.”"

[Drudge siren.gif]

10/7/2011 2:29:47 PM

10/7/2011 2:38:25 PM

Shit shit shit

10/7/2011 2:42:44 PM

why don't you make a "Perpetual things ThePeter finds on the Drudge Report" thread?

10/7/2011 2:42:49 PM

10/7/2011 2:43:17 PM

READ THE CODE DUMB ASSES

10/7/2011 2:44:15 PM

^^^Tried, didn't work.

obligatoryWhy don't you try contributing to the site [haters gonna hate]

[Edited on October 7, 2011 at 2:45 PM. Reason : ^]

10/7/2011 2:45:11 PM

I, for one, appreciate tdubbers that post shit from other websites because it saves me the trouble of surfing the internet myself

10/7/2011 2:49:05 PM

well, this sounds like a pretty good reason to cut DOD funding.

10/7/2011 2:50:47 PM

[Edited on October 7, 2011 at 2:54 PM. Reason : dd]

10/7/2011 2:53:56 PM

^^The part that bugs me is that so much of this is just simpleton oversight. Not encrypting the transmissions from the drones to the base, classified-to-public bridges, this recent virus vulnerability...I mean, seems pretty basic stuff that you would know to safe guard against.

10/7/2011 3:07:59 PM

http://video.foxnews.com/v/1201145427001/defense-system-takes-out-ballistic-missiles-over-pacific/?playlist_id=87937&intcmp=obinsite

10/7/2011 3:19:53 PM

10/7/2011 3:25:06 PM

I think this type of security comes from preventive AND active maintenance of your system. Both of which go out the window when budgets get cut, and schedules get drawn in... people start to cut corners

[Edited on October 7, 2011 at 3:33 PM. Reason : |]

10/7/2011 3:30:53 PM

We're fucked

[Edited on October 7, 2011 at 4:27 PM. Reason : .]

10/7/2011 4:26:41 PM

fear terminators

10/7/2011 4:41:16 PM

damn this thread just reminded me how much i miss sarah connor chronicles...

10/8/2011 1:13:36 AM

Damn this thread just reminded me we have robot airplanes that bomb civilians overseas and I'm really glad I'm a white American since we're immune to that sort of thing for the time being.

10/8/2011 1:19:49 AM

Damn this thread just reminded me we have insane suicide bombers that fly airplanes into civilians overseas and I'm really glad I'm a dark Muslim since we're immune to that sort of thing for the time being.

10/8/2011 1:23:25 AM

So it's okay that we're on the same level as Al Qaeda or...?

10/8/2011 1:26:03 AM

Damn it also just reminded me how we have an African black male in the white house giving the executive orders to use them on ancestors in his own native continent in Libya/Somalia/Etc

10/8/2011 1:28:22 AM

and the liberal stance and the conservative stance and the i'm black and can be racist towards whites stance but a white person must remain politically correct stance and the attacking the liberal stance, and the retorting against the conservative stance, and then the reply about a democrat doing x and then a republican doing y and then the talking points and then the stating of some random troll fact about republicans and then the reply after reply based entirely on opinion and no facts whatsoever and comparing random american white males to al qaeda groups and should be equally bombed and then the writing and the googling to defend your answers and then the talking and the replying and the responding and the editing your post and then you give up because there really is no point in discussing it because in reality you finally realize radical muslim groups literally do want to murder everybody on earth and cause chaos and are literally a virus living amongst us.

10/8/2011 1:33:09 AM

radical white males want to take over everything and have all the money/power

10/8/2011 1:34:36 AM

and the responding and the anger against white people and the open racism against white males that is no longer quiet. but outright open rage. and the completely being open about your outright hatred towards white males. and the openly raging against white men.

[Edited on October 8, 2011 at 1:40 AM. Reason : .]

10/8/2011 1:37:48 AM

substitute white males with muslim males and we could say the same

10/8/2011 1:42:48 AM

sorry eman. your boys are droppin like flies

10/8/2011 1:46:27 AM

I call bs on less than 10 suicide bombings in 04

otherwise, no arguments

10/8/2011 1:48:53 AM

idk man. i got it on a liberal website supporting obamas decision to go heavy on drone attacks. so it has to be true.

10/8/2011 1:51:13 AM

Quote :

"The Virus Infecting the U.S. Drone Fleet Came from Mafia Wars"

http://news.yahoo.com/virus-infecting-u-drone-fleet-came-mafia-wars-141511631.html

10/14/2011 5:27:40 AM

^Link isn't from The Onion?

10/14/2011 7:30:24 AM

pack bryan is basically an unsuccessful hick version of Tom Buchanan lol

10/14/2011 7:33:59 AM

yo bryan btw dude you're wrong about everything and have a cave man's values

bryan: "FUCKING BLACKS AND MEXICANS"

10/14/2011 7:34:27 AM

yo bryan how you doing today man, have you managed to calm down since the last time

bryan: "REVERSE RACISM AFFIRMATIVE ACTION WELFARE QUEENS"

[Edited on October 14, 2011 at 7:37 AM. Reason : you're like the angry ghost of rush limbaugh's racism]

10/14/2011 7:37:21 AM

holy shit

just saw this article... my first thought was the chinese, but then i read the articles.

10/14/2011 7:49:21 AM

10/14/2011 8:03:04 AM

is that facepalm in reference to my post? if so please explain how it would be unreasonable to suspect the chinese (who have a reputation of government funded "cyber warfare") in a virus being uploaded to our military software? (obviously that was NOT the case here, but the headline wasn't exactly specific)

[Edited on October 14, 2011 at 8:13 AM. Reason : ]

10/14/2011 8:12:51 AM

Nah, its to the fact that no matter how mighty our military is, you still can't account for the herpaderps in it who facebook and play Mafia Wars on military computers

10/14/2011 8:15:14 AM

It's the chinese.

10/14/2011 8:16:44 AM

ha ok. i too support facepalming in that case.

10/14/2011 8:16:55 AM