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US drones catch a virus

by on10 October 2011



Logging key strokes

US Predator and Reaper drones have been hit by a computer virus that is logging the keystrokes of pilots as they steer the UAVs remotely through Afghanistan and other warzones.

Wired reports how security researcher Miles Fidelman, thinks that the virus may be an internal Department of Defense (DoD) security monitoring package. He said that there are a couple of vendors who sell such technology to the DoD, which are rootkits that do key logging.

It might be that the virus that folks are fighting is something that some other part of DoD deployed intentionally, Fidelman adds. The virus hit the “cockpits” of the pilots computer stations at Nevada’s Creech Air Force Base. It was first detected by the military’s Host-Based Security System close to two weeks ago.

The military tried removing it several times, but it keeps coming back. Still, it doesn’t seem to have stopped them from continuing their missions, and no classified data has been taken.

More here.

 

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