Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Computer virus hits US Predator and Reaper drone fleet

arstechnica.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

51–60 of 197 posts

Re: Computer virus hits US Predator and Reaper drone fleet

#51

Post by breck »

phillmv wrote: post #37
JonnieCache wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If I'm ever in charge of a PC capable of firing guns at people, then at a bare minimum I would disable the USB bus entirely, I probably wouldn't fit a NIC either. I'd also definitely install some of that software that makes the HDD read only and transparently passes through all writes to RAM. Fuckit, if I'm the US military I'd develop such a device in hardware. Send the recorded video/telemetry data to a write-only v…

>It's not that hard. eye roll

It's not that hard if you have a top notch engineer in charge and give him whatever he needs to get the job done.

If you have a good engineer or a great engineer but any kind of bureaucracy, yes, it's near impossible.

Re: Computer virus hits US Predator and Reaper drone fleet

#52

Post by scarmig »

"We think it's benign, but we just don't know."

Whoever this is is obviously so far out of the loop and technical domain that everything they say should be taken with a heaping pile of salt.

I don't doubt that a virus exists, but the scope of it is likely wildly overblown. At least, there's no reason to actually think it's some military grade virus that is impossible to eradicate that intercepts all communications with the drones.

Re: Computer virus hits US Predator and Reaper drone fleet

#53

Post by JonnieCache »

ghshephard wrote: post #50
JonnieCache wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If I'm ever in charge of a PC capable of firing guns at people, then at a bare minimum I would disable the USB bus entirely, I probably wouldn't fit a NIC either. I'd also definitely install some of that software that makes the HDD read only and transparently passes through all writes to RAM. Fuckit, if I'm the US military I'd develop such a device in hardware. Send the recorded video/telemetry data to a write-only v…

"I would disable the USB bus entirely" So how would you support Mice, Keyboards and Joysticks? And how long would it take you to retrofit all of the some 100K+ PCs rated "secret" or above in the Government?

I'd attach them to the PCIe bus somehow, or otherwise wire them straight into the motherboard.

Let me remind you that this computer can fire missiles at people, and has a potentially unlimited budget.

Re: Computer virus hits US Predator and Reaper drone fleet

#54

Post by runjake »

roc wrote: post #25
runjake wrote: post #16

Clarification: It's infecting the control station computers (which I believe are still Windows XP), not the UAVs themselves.

Those computers have access to every bit of data coming from the UAVs and every bit of control data going to the UAVs. So the fact that the compromised machine is in Nevada and not over Pakistan is pretty close to irrelevant. Unless you want to make the argument that it's far worse for the ground control systems to be continually reinfected, as they have access to the rest of the air-gapped private network as well.

You don't need to tell me about the systems. I worked on them.

It's far less worse that the control stations are infected as opposed to the aircraft themselves. It's pretty easy to shift control stations for a UAV. It's not so easy to regain control of a malfunctioning UAV. So, far from irrelevant.

That said, I was merely clarifying a common misinterpretation people were getting from the article.

Re: Computer virus hits US Predator and Reaper drone fleet

#55

Post by joeybaker »

It would be great if Ars had used its security and technical staff to tell us if this is a problem or the minor annoyance that the military says it is. The article amounts to little more than a summary of the drone program and a bit of "he said she said" http://archive.pressthink.org/2009/04/12/hesaid_shesaid.html reportage.

Re: Computer virus hits US Predator and Reaper drone fleet

#56

Post by greyish_water »

Vivtek wrote: post #41
jlarocco wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The way it works is some AF guy in Nevada remotely controls the drones flying half way across the world. My guess is it's not the drones themselves running Windows, but the consoles used to communicate with the drones. It makes sense. AF guy gets to work, plugs in his USB drive filled with music and pulls up the drone control program... Though, now that I think about it, I would be disappointed, but not entirely surp…

Well, there was that case maybe ten years ago of the nuclear carrier that had to be towed back to port after a BSoD killed it dead in the water; its control systems all ran Windows.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Yorktown_(CG-48)#Smart_ship...

Re: Computer virus hits US Predator and Reaper drone fleet

#57

Post by Pyrodogg »

Vivtek wrote: post #41
jlarocco wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The way it works is some AF guy in Nevada remotely controls the drones flying half way across the world. My guess is it's not the drones themselves running Windows, but the consoles used to communicate with the drones. It makes sense. AF guy gets to work, plugs in his USB drive filled with music and pulls up the drone control program... Though, now that I think about it, I would be disappointed, but not entirely surp…

Well, there was that case maybe ten years ago of the nuclear carrier that had to be towed back to port after a BSoD killed it dead in the water; its control systems all ran Windows.

> On 21 September 1997, while on maneuvers off the coast of Cape Charles, Virginia, a crew member entered a zero into a database field causing a divide by zero error in the ship's Remote Data Base Manager which brought down all the machines on the network, causing the ship's propulsion system to fail.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Yorktown_(CG-48)#Smart_ship...

Wow. Reading more of the wiki article (and linked sources) reveals that the actual towing to port is a contested issue. Noone denies that a /0 error killed the whole ship though.

Re: Computer virus hits US Predator and Reaper drone fleet

#58

Post by bradfa »

ghshephard wrote: post #48
roc wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or they could just fill all the usb ports with glue and remove the optical disk drives, if any. I thought the whole point of an air gap network is that nothing crosses the gap. Having those ports/devices available is just asking for it.

"usb ports with glue" Keyboards, Mice, Joysticks for these systems were probably designed with the idea that a USB bus would be available. It will take a while to replace all of these systems with their non-USB configurations. Given that BlueTooth is probably a no-no as well, how would one build a system these days that needs to support Mice, Joysticks, and Keyboards without using USB?

A few options include: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PS/2_connector and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Game_port

Re: Computer virus hits US Predator and Reaper drone fleet

#59

Post by Steko »

JonnieCache wrote: post #11

Like hugh says, this doesn't add up at all. “We keep wiping it off, and it keeps coming back,” says a source familiar with the network infection, one of three that told Danger Room about the virus. “We think it’s benign. But we just don’t know.” C'mon. You're the military. "It just keeps coming back?" So you decide to do a press release about it? Please. I wouldn't have whined like that when I was de-malwareing neigh…

US hacks other countries war machines with targeted virus: brilliant!

Other countries hack US war machines with targeted virus: man, I couldda stopped that shit easy.

Re: Computer virus hits US Predator and Reaper drone fleet

#60

Post by khafra »

JonnieCache wrote: post #26
rdl wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are hundreds of thousands of machines and millions of removable drives. Tracking down every last instance of a piece of malware and then dealing with it is quite hard at that scale. Usually they fall back on policy ("no usb/removable drives") They're handicapped by a need AND compulsion to use contractors for everything. Actual government employees didn't build drones; they were all developed and in many cases…

If I'm ever in charge of a PC capable of firing guns at people, then at a bare minimum I would disable the USB bus entirely, I probably wouldn't fit a NIC either. I'd also definitely install some of that software that makes the HDD read only and transparently passes through all writes to RAM. Fuckit, if I'm the US military I'd develop such a device in hardware. Send the recorded video/telemetry data to a write-only v…

How does the PC make the drone 10,000 miles away fire the missiles once you take the NIC out?
Post reply on HN