Computers Controlling Military Drones Reportedly Infected with Virus

[Photo: US Air Force]

The computers accustomed control Vulture and Raptor drones used in Afghanistan and other warfare zones have been reportedly infected away a virus that captures the keystrokes of the pilots operational the unmanned aircraft.

Although detected two weeks ago by the military's network security systems, the military has been unable to spue its computers of the ostensible keyboard faller, Noah Shactman reported Friday in Wired's Danger Room blog.

"We keep wiping it off, and it keeps coming back," a source companion with the network contagion told Shactman. "We think it's benign. Simply we simply don't know."

According to the report, the virus hasn't prevented pilots stationed at Creech Air Force Lowly in Nevada–where the drone pipe control center is set–from completing their missions. Nor has any categorized information been lost or sent to an outside reference, Wired reported.

Zero one knows how the malware got into the organization or whether its arrival was deliberate or accidental, but information technology has pestiferous both confidential and unclassified machines. That means information nicked from the restricted networks could cost funneled to the uncategorized networks where information technology could be leaked to clandestine locations along the public Internet.

According to Bugged, the Air Force isn't commenting instantly on the contagion. A spokesman for the service's Air Scrap Command, which oversees the drone broadcast, said that that it doesn't discuss specific vulnerabilities, threats and responses to its computer networks because it can help intruders refine their attacks on martial systems.

"We invest a flock in protecting and monitoring our systems to buffet threats and ensure security, which includes a across-the-board response to viruses, worms, and other malware we discover," the spokesman told Wired.

Although the keylogger appears to be harmless, some security experts set up news of the intrusion alarming.

"This is bad in so many ways," Richard Stiennon, principal research analyst with IT-Harvest in Birmingham, Mich., told PCWorld. "It indicates that the military is using all insecure in operation systems and practices for the grave function of controlling drones."

"These are deadly weapons that must mold as needed and only when required," atomic number 2 continued. "To cause their command and control corrupted by apparently common malware is inexcusable."

He well-kept that the hard drives on the infected machines should be restored from a light image. "A removal tool cannot be trusted to altogether remove a virus," he asserted. "The fact that they unsuccessful several times to dispatch this malware indicates the sorry state of protection inside this critical military system."

John Bumgarner, chief technology officer with the U.S. Cyber Consequences Unit added: "It is extremely heavy that the warriorlike computer systems used to fly confidential Predator missions were breached by an anon. adversary. The security controls for these raw people security systems should have been held to a much higher standard by the Department of Defense."

Disdain the sensitive nature of their operations, computer security hasn't been a hallmark of drone trading operations. In 2009, for example, the military appropriated the laptop of a Shiite militant in Iraq and found days of video footage intercepted from drones flying missions in the region. Since video feeds from the drones are unencrypted, the military explained, it's comparatively easy for the militants to snatch them from the air with software that can personify purchased off the Net for $26.

Since the terrorist attacks on the United States government on Folk. 11, 2001, drones have increased in importance as a tactical weapon. In the 10 years shadowing 9/11, 30 CIA drones have been attributed with the deaths of much 2000 militants and civilians. Another 150 Predator and Reaper drones operated by the Air Force patrol the skies over Al-Iraq and Afghanistan. U.S. drones were likewise used to support NATO air attacks in Libya and were causative the expiry end calendar week of Anwar al-Awlaki, dubbed away some as the "Osama of the Internet."

[Updated Oct 7, 4:04 PM with additional information]

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Source: https://www.pcworld.com/article/477201/computers_controlling_military_drones_reportedly_infected_with_virus.html

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