An article on Wired's
Danger Room claims that some of the US
UAV /
UAS /
Drone fleet has been hit by a network infection with
malware (
computer virus) that includes a so-called
keylogger component. That means, if true, that every keystroke entered by the
pilots and others operating the secret
Predator,
Reaper and other perhaps
top secret (
black)
classified drone aircraft programs, could be captured and transmitted to anyone, from other unfriendly governments, to those directly fighting the troops in the field. That would be bad.
The Danger Room article, which is an excellent piece of reporting, says the
Air Force was keeping mum on the specifics. That's not surprising. Lt. Col. Tadd Sholtis, a spokesman for
Air Combat Command, told Danger Zone, "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."
One element of network security typically employed by such systems is the lack of a direct connection to other networks, including the internet. However, the system's computers must be updated somehow, often with removable media such as CDs, DVDs and flash drives. If one of those is infected they can pass the infection to, in this case, the
drone operator's systems, during the update.
What is not clear from the Danger Room piece is how any captured data could be obtained by a third party since the drone operation network is not connected to other means of communication (i.e., the internet). Unless the data was saved and downloaded by an insider with other removable media (a la the Wikileaks case), this
keylogger virus may be more gnat than snake.
Your thoughts? Post below. Just be polite.
Predator Drone Stock Photos
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