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http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2394374,00.asp
Keylogger Virus Hits U.S. Military Drones
David Murphy By David Murphy
October 8, 2011 08:40pm EST
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U.S. Air Force Drone
A keylogger of some sort has infiltrated classified and unclassified computer systems at Creech Air Force Base in Nevada, recording the keystrokes of pilots tasked with operating unmanned drone aircraft in Afghanistan and other international conflict zones.
That's not exactly the kind of news one wants to hear coming from military representatives, but there's a silver lining to the infection: There are no confirmed reports thus far that any classified information has leaked out into the insecure waters of the Web. That said, the scope of the infection does still raise the possibility that information of some sort has been collected and transmitted to a third party, reports Wired's Noah Shachtman.
And, so far, the military has been unable to stop the virus/keylogger on a widespread scale. Repeated attempts to remove the malware from Creech's computers have only proven temporarily successful, if that. As a kind of last resort, military network specialists have resorted to full drive wipes to combat the persistent infection. They have been using a tool called BCWipe to completely erase the hard drives' data before rebuilding the drives' contents back from nothing.
"We keep wiping it off, and it keeps coming back," said an anonymous source to Shachtman. "We think it's benign. But we just don't know."
There's no official word as to whether the virus was introduced into Creech's systems by accident or whether these systems were specifically targeted by an external party. The military's network security specialists have also been unable to pinpoint just how far the keylogger has made its way through Creech's systems.
As one might expect, the racks of servers used to control unmarked drones run disconnected from the Internet by default – as such, there should be no way that an external party could just knock on the digital front door of these systems and drop off a malware package.
However, sources believe that removable hard drives used to transfer map updates and mission videos from system to system helped insert and propagate the virus within Creech's systems. The use of removable drives has since been eliminated in other worldwide drone programs in the hopes that the problems affecting Creech's systems can be prevented in the future.
While the Creech infestation hasn't risen to the level of "panic" yet, according to sources within the base, senior officials receive daily briefings on the status of the virus outbreak.
For more from David, subscribe to him on Facebook: David Murphy.
For the top stories in tech, follow us on Twitter at @PCMag.
Keylogger Virus Hits U.S. Military Drones
David Murphy By David Murphy
October 8, 2011 08:40pm EST
Comments
Tweet
U.S. Air Force Drone
A keylogger of some sort has infiltrated classified and unclassified computer systems at Creech Air Force Base in Nevada, recording the keystrokes of pilots tasked with operating unmanned drone aircraft in Afghanistan and other international conflict zones.
That's not exactly the kind of news one wants to hear coming from military representatives, but there's a silver lining to the infection: There are no confirmed reports thus far that any classified information has leaked out into the insecure waters of the Web. That said, the scope of the infection does still raise the possibility that information of some sort has been collected and transmitted to a third party, reports Wired's Noah Shachtman.
And, so far, the military has been unable to stop the virus/keylogger on a widespread scale. Repeated attempts to remove the malware from Creech's computers have only proven temporarily successful, if that. As a kind of last resort, military network specialists have resorted to full drive wipes to combat the persistent infection. They have been using a tool called BCWipe to completely erase the hard drives' data before rebuilding the drives' contents back from nothing.
"We keep wiping it off, and it keeps coming back," said an anonymous source to Shachtman. "We think it's benign. But we just don't know."
There's no official word as to whether the virus was introduced into Creech's systems by accident or whether these systems were specifically targeted by an external party. The military's network security specialists have also been unable to pinpoint just how far the keylogger has made its way through Creech's systems.
As one might expect, the racks of servers used to control unmarked drones run disconnected from the Internet by default – as such, there should be no way that an external party could just knock on the digital front door of these systems and drop off a malware package.
However, sources believe that removable hard drives used to transfer map updates and mission videos from system to system helped insert and propagate the virus within Creech's systems. The use of removable drives has since been eliminated in other worldwide drone programs in the hopes that the problems affecting Creech's systems can be prevented in the future.
While the Creech infestation hasn't risen to the level of "panic" yet, according to sources within the base, senior officials receive daily briefings on the status of the virus outbreak.
For more from David, subscribe to him on Facebook: David Murphy.
For the top stories in tech, follow us on Twitter at @PCMag.
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