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| Iraq |
| US military drone security breach fixed-official |
| 2009-12-18 |
| [Asharq al-Aswat] The Pentagon has closed a security breach that allowed insurgents to hack into data feeds from pilotless "drone" aircraft that provide real-time video of war zones, a U.S. defense official said on Thursday. The comments followed a report in the Wall Street Journal that revealed Shi'ite fighters in Iraq used software that cost as little as $26 to intercept the video feeds, potentially allowing them to monitor U.S. military operations. "It is an old issue that was addressed and fixed," the U.S. defense official said when asked about the article. The article said U.S. military personnel in Iraq discovered the problem last year after apprehending a Shi'ite insurgent who had digital files of drone video feeds on his laptop. More files were found on other militants' laptops in July. Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman declined to discuss details of the article, or intelligence matters more broadly. But he defended the expanding use of drone aircraft in Iraq and Afghanistan, which provide "eyes in the sky" to track enemy movements and keep U.S. troops out of harm's way. "Every capability comes with its advantages, disadvantages, benefits as well as potential weaknesses," Whitman said. "As you develop those (technologies) you have to be mindful of how the enemy can counteract any technology that you have. That's why you always have a constant review process in place to not only improve that capability but address any vulnerabilities it may have." Publicly traded companies that manufacture the pilotless drone aircraft and sensors include Lockheed Martin Corp, Northrop Grumman Corp and L-3 Communications Holdings Inc. |
| Posted by:Fred |
| #3 It wouldn't take much to slow them down. Even a few hours or maybe days in some cases should be fine. Get some crappy old algorithm and throw that on. Change the key once a month even, who cares! Don't just give it to them, make them sweat. Use a PLA or something that you can change the programming for invisibly. These guys don't have the resources to reverse engineer that kind of stuff easily. Heck, you could even have it fry itself if it detected a crash or whatever. Airbags can detect a crash, use that tech. It's off-the-shelf. There is an easy solution out there somewhere. We don't need the ultimate solution here, just something to buy time until a good-enough one can be developed. Also, you might put up a secret ad on the internet for decoders for the new encryption scheme and see who bites. Mail them a gps transmitter that actually decodes some harmless stuff and see where they go. Then blow those places up. |
| Posted by: gorb 2009-12-18 21:43 |
| #2 Passed as received from someone very familiar with the UAV programs: Yeah, this has been a known weakness for years. It was accepted because fixing it is really hard, without severely limiting the usefulness of the aircraft. You want to protect the encryption devices, and thatÂ’s hard when theyÂ’re in the hands of every platoon and SOF team, and on every aircraft (and these aircraft are lost every now and then). And you have to get everybody synced up and using the same keys. This is a warning sign to start working on it, though. The suggestion in one of the articles that the signal could be hacked into is baloney, though. TheyÂ’re just receiving a broadcast signal, thereÂ’s no duplex line. There is a command signal to the aircraft, but thatÂ’s separate. |
| Posted by: lotp 2009-12-18 21:12 |
| #1 Word I have is that these were battalion and possibly brigade level tactical drones. Not the Preds, or other big (armed) guys. |
| Posted by: OldSpook 2009-12-18 10:12 |