Keylogging Military Hardware/Software

[Raziaar]

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

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.

Some crazy shit. I'm a bit confused by what they're saying when they remove it but it keeps coming back. That's typical virus type behavior. Makes me wonder how truly good of a job the people are doing to remove it.

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.

It's kind of bad that our military technicians need to follow step by step instructions from antivirus firms and use externally written software.

Proves the inadequacy of our military to defend itself in such situations.

 

[<RJMC>]

chinese are probably keeping a close eye to this,lol what I am saying sure they are behind this

 

[[Dragoon]]

Why not just keep clean images of all the drives and ghost them at the slightest hint of something amiss? And, judging by the technical prowess of the people in charge of IT there, it seems more likely that someone just ran a suspicious attachment or something, rather than it being a coordinated and planned attack from another government.

 

[ríomhaire]

How do they get a virus in the first place? Are those computers connected to the internet? If so why the hell are they connected to the internet?

 

[RakuraiTenjin]

This isnt as bad as the insurgents in Iraq and Afghanistan that were using $30 skygrabber to intercept 'days and days' of live Predator drone video feeds. They could see where they were being monitored from because the feeds from the drones were unencrypted.

 

[Apocalypse89]

Use state-of-the-art weapons and technology to kill enemies from across the globe. Need to check Kaspersky's website to see how to remove a virus from your system.

The US Military

 

[[Dragoon]]

Use state-of-the-art weapons and technology to kill enemies from across the globe. Need to check Kaspersky's website to see how to remove a virus from your system.

The US Military

Are you implying that it's a bad idea to put technologically illiterate, under-trained personnel in charge of the murderbots?

 

[Acepilotf14]

Cyber security is one of the possible jobs I can get in the Air Force.

They are not undertrained. They go through months of training just to get a job at the lowest level of security on base.

So this is obviously a serious issue.

Unless you're referring to the Kaspersky guys, inwhich I say that perhaps it's an Indian conspiracy to take over the USA by depriving us of tech support.

 

[Raziaar]

This isnt as bad as the insurgents in Iraq and Afghanistan that were using $30 skygrabber to intercept 'days and days' of live Predator drone video feeds. They could see where they were being monitored from because the feeds from the drones were unencrypted.

It's right in the article.

Cyber security is one of the possible jobs I can get in the Air Force.

They are not undertrained. They go through months of training just to get a job at the lowest level of security on base.

So this is obviously a serious issue.

Unless you're referring to the Kaspersky guys, inwhich I say that perhaps it's an Indian conspiracy to take over the USA by depriving us of tech support.

The military does shitloads of R&D... You'd think they'd have their own teams of people working on proprietary government software that can protect their systems in the best possible fashion instead of borrowing tools from the internet and using antivirus guides that the common civilian uses to get rid of viruses.

It's the military, they should be much better on top of it. Months of training does not cut it in the computer security world. Lifetime of computer experience and dealing with vulnerabilities is what it'd take.


Back in the day, the military used to be THE pioneering force in computer technology hardware and software... but not so much these days I guess. Obviously they're not going to be able to compete with civilian juggernauts producing hardware... but at the very least they can have their own software teams and cyber security teams that aren't just looking through a walk-through on how to deal with certain problems.

 

[Stigmata]

Right on, Raz. Basically it comes down to bureaucracy being hugely inefficient, to the point where it produces an endless feedback loop of inefficiency. By that I mean, you end up with a system that has so many checks and balances and separations of control that it can't react fast enough to its environment (keep up with advancing technology), and all it can do is continue to grow the way it always has until it collapses due to a lack of resources or is killed. The US Military has an advantage against this, in the form of its interests having near-total distributed control of the American economy - which is why it hasn't suffered such a collapse or death yet - but it's basically inevitable.

 

[15357]

How do they get a virus in the first place? Are those computers connected to the internet? If so why the hell are they connected to the internet?

I have little knowledge about this, but the military intranet over here is connected by a select few 'gateways' to the internet so that the individual networks of the Army, Navy, and Air Force can be brought together, as well as renew information such as standard time.

Anyway, there is are reasons that the military prefers more dated technology; like 90s CPUs for fighter jets, and MS-DOS for self-propelled artillery firing solution computers: one is that they're proven to be more stable, and the other is stuff like this.

 

[Escaep]

Should switch to OSX.

 

[hool10]

How do they get a virus in the first place? Are those computers connected to the internet? If so why the hell are they connected to the internet?

This. *Hey maybe it's to you know, update the anti-virus and get Windows updates?

 

[Escaep]

How do they get a virus in the first place? Are those computers connected to the internet? If so why the hell are they connected to the internet?

I read somewhere else that they swapped the hard drives out quite often and they believe when they hooked one of the drives up to a regular computer, the virus transferred.

 

[[Dragoon]]

So apparently the virus was trying to steal the Predator Drones' Mafia Wars accounts, and it came from a flash drive or portable hard drive that someone was stupid enough to plug into a high importance system.

http://www.theatlanticwire.com/nati...fecting-us-drone-fleet-came-mafia-wars/43623/

 

[Raziaar]

People who play Mafia Wars should have their predator drones infected.

I'm just saying...

 

[Bad^Hat]

That sounds like the intro to a terrible remake of Wargames.