– Now, this is scary in several ways….
– dennis
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According to a Wired report, malware has infected the control systems used by the United States Air Force to fly Predator and Reaper drones, logging keypresses as the unmanned aircraft are flown remotely in Afghanistan, Libya, Pakistan and other conflict zones.
The malware intrusion is said to have been detected by the Department of Defense’s ownHost Based Security System (HBSS), but attempts to permanently remove the infection from one of America’s most important weapons systems have proven unsuccessful.
Inevitably there has been some concern in the media that malware could interfere with the flight of drones that are not just capable of surveillance, but can also carry deadly missiles to remote targets.
Questions are understandably being asked as to whether a remote hacker could interfere with the drones mid-flight, or send information to a third party about the drone’s whereabouts or intended target.
Wired quotes an unnamed source familiar with the infection as saying:
"We keep wiping it off, and it keeps coming back... We think it’s benign. But we just don't know."
Hmm.. If I “just didn’t know” I would assume the worst. In computer security, it’s always safest to assume the worst possible scenario has happened and take the necessary steps until you have proven that it hasn’t, rather than assume everything is ticketyboo.
– More… ➡