Computer virus hits US Predator and Reaper drone fleet • Hacker News Board

Re: Computer virus hits US Predator and Reaper drone fleet

#181

Post by josefresco » Sat, Oct 08, 2011, 12:17 PM UTC

Bud wrote: post #135

teej wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am totally with you. If software is going to operate deadly weapons, it sure as hell better be secure. But you are glossing over a LOT of detail here. The military doesn't work like Apple: they don't design, oversee, or directly control the construction of the hardware they use. And they shouldn't - the government is woefully inefficient at building products, that's what corporations are good at. Here's the situati…

teej, I assure you, I am under no illusion that they can "slap Norton on these things and call it a day". I am at least somewhat conversant with the realities of designing complex military systems. But if the systems really are so highly specialized, and I assume they are, that's still no excuse. At all. If they can't keep malware off them, they have no business flying them, at least for the time being. Which is all…

The systems are less specialized than we all would hope. Even with our massive budget the military is still 'forced' to use existing tech, which opens them up to situations like this.

And if you think this little press release means anything to actual national security, you have much to learn about our secret war against terrorism.

Re: Computer virus hits US Predator and Reaper drone fleet

#182

Post by Hyena » Sat, Oct 08, 2011, 1:06 PM UTC

How difficult would t be for the DoD to make an OS just for themselves with no public distribution or documentation? That seems like the permanent solution here.

Re: Computer virus hits US Predator and Reaper drone fleet

#183

Post by WettowelReactor » Sat, Oct 08, 2011, 1:38 PM UTC

lucasjung wrote: post #156

ArbitraryLimits wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The UAV itself will have a computer running a commercial RTOS. The computer on the ground which the operator sits and and uses to interact with the UAV is almost certainly a Windows box. And as someone else said, the military's way of securing Windows machines like those has traditionally been not to hook them up to a network in the first place, instead of installing anti-virus software. That actually worked really w…

USB flash drives are banned DOD-wide. Most DOD computers are setup up to not even mount them when they are plugged in.

Unless policy has changed dramatically since I was in USB drives can be used after they have been classified, properly marked, and scanned. That being said policy and reality are very different beasts. While deployed we had exactly 0 instances of malware/virus on our unclassified NIPRNet devices and at least 2 dozen malware/virus outbreaks on our SIPRNet machines. Usually these came about from the fact that those on SIPRNet tend to be of higher ranks and "above the rules" just like in a corporate structure. The other common offenders where MI and Signal geeks who "knew" better and assumed that their stuff couldn't possibly be infected.

Re: Computer virus hits US Predator and Reaper drone fleet

#184

Post by mentat » Sat, Oct 08, 2011, 2:16 PM UTC

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…

The "problem" is that people want to actually get stuff done. Security vs. availability is always the conflict. Perhaps the USB is being used to bring in the latest maps, perhaps it's being used to bring in mission orders, who knows. Unless you understand the system, it's absurd to say the equivalent of a military 13 year old can fix it.

Re: Computer virus hits US Predator and Reaper drone fleet

#185

Post by mentat » Sat, Oct 08, 2011, 2:20 PM UTC

27182818284 wrote: post #171

lucasjung wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

USB flash drives are banned DOD-wide. Most DOD computers are setup up to not even mount them when they are plugged in.

I was told recently by someone working with DoD equipment that although USB flash drives were banned, certain USB hard drives were still OK. He was telling me this because it was so hilarious and alarming.

I was talking to a guy who makes "encrypted" USB drives at the NSA TCC recently. It sounded scarily hand wavy to me. I was asking, "but where is the key stored" and he tells me with a straight face, "right on the drive".

Re: Computer virus hits US Predator and Reaper drone fleet

#186

Post by mentat » Sat, Oct 08, 2011, 2:21 PM UTC

wisty wrote: post #178

lucasjung wrote: post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can actually still do that: drawing 5V doesn't require the phone to mount as a drive.

So, what happens when a virus on the phone tells it to pose as a CD drive, and install a keylogger?

The Social Engineering Toolkit's keyboard based malware deployment engine for Teensy could be repurposed for use on other USB devices.

Re: Computer virus hits US Predator and Reaper drone fleet

#187

Post by mentat » Sat, Oct 08, 2011, 2:26 PM UTC

JonnieCache wrote: post #53

ghshephard wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"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.

Seriously? Have you ever worked on a PCIe bus device? They are hard to design, hard to test, and in general quite expensive. You're not going to build PCIe keyboards and mice that cost 10,000x COTS. That would at the very least cost someone their political career. (And the people who are making the decisions think about it that way, whether you want them to or not.)

Re: Computer virus hits US Predator and Reaper drone fleet

#188

Post by brown9-2 » Sat, Oct 08, 2011, 4:04 PM UTC

ajays wrote: post #145

brown9-2 wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's a bit like saying all a terrorist would need to do to seize control of an ICBM is to infect the missile base with a virus. It's not that easy.

They have infected the control computers, and the keylogger (and mouselogger?) is logging all the commands being given. If they can come this far, how difficult is it to, say, insert spurious "fire" commands? Or redirect the drone to some other place?

My point was that there isn't any indication from this report that the drones were purposefully infected. Random infections are probably inevitable due to probabilities, but deliberate ones seem quite a bit harder.

Re: Computer virus hits US Predator and Reaper drone fleet

#189

Post by tedunangst » Sat, Oct 08, 2011, 7:07 PM UTC

rbanffy wrote: post #129

pcottle wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No modern UAV has hardware capable of running an entire Windows installation. Think of arduino boards; those things can control huge robotics systems and they are very simple (and thus simple to debug). If you're designing a robot from the ground-up, why would you scale all the way to Windows? No one is going to be playing minesweeper inside the plane

> why would you scale all the way to Windows? For the only reasons such stupid thing happens: the clueless manager wants the machine to run a modern OS and thinks Windows is the most modern OS out there. post-downvote edit: I am saying nothing about viruses like Stuxnet, designed as weapons tailored to infect specific systems, for which no OS would be safe, but how brain-dead is it to design critical systems that con…

I'd say you're being downvoted because you're rather clueless about the qualifications of the manager designing unmanned drones.

Re: Computer virus hits US Predator and Reaper drone fleet

#190

Post by rbanffy » Sat, Oct 08, 2011, 10:10 PM UTC

tedunangst wrote: post #189

rbanffy wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> why would you scale all the way to Windows? For the only reasons such stupid thing happens: the clueless manager wants the machine to run a modern OS and thinks Windows is the most modern OS out there. post-downvote edit: I am saying nothing about viruses like Stuxnet, designed as weapons tailored to infect specific systems, for which no OS would be safe, but how brain-dead is it to design critical systems that con…

I'd say you're being downvoted because you're rather clueless about the qualifications of the manager designing unmanned drones.

Now I am curious. Why would Windows end up in such a system? I would expect an RTOS like QNX (which is not that hard to program).

I agree I am more familiar with corporate IT disasters where some pointy-haired boss decided Windows was the way to go instead of what would be the optimal choice, but I always expected flight-control software to be built with a great amount of attention to every detail.