US drone fleet infected by virus

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Keylogging software hasn't stopped flights, but security crew can't get rid of it.

A persistent keylogging computer virus has infected the piloting systems used to control U.S. Predator and Reaper unmanned aerial vehicles in Afghanistan and elsewhere, Wired has reported.

The virus records the keystrokes of Air Force pilots flying the drones remotely from Creech Air Force Base in the Mojave Desert, Nevada. The infection hasn’t prevented the Air Force from flying its missions, and there have been no reports of lost information, but the virus has resisted repeated efforts by IT crews to clean it from the drone system, Wired reports.

“We keep wiping it off, and it keeps coming back,” a source told Wired’s Danger Room. “We think it’s benign. But we just don’t know.” Security specialists said they couldn’t tell whether it was the result of a planned attack or a accidental infection.

Drones have become an increasingly important tool for U.S. forces in battle zones as the number of troops dwindles and the military turns to network-based operations.

The Air Force this year released a procurement plan calling for doubling by 2021 the number of its most advanced drones — the RQ-4 Global Hawk class, MQ-9 Reaper and MQ-1 Predator class.

The drones have been used for attacks in Pakistan and Afghanistan and also are used extensively for surveillance. This year, the Air Force launched its Gorgon Stare program, which uses a Predator or Reaper to record surveillance data on up to 12 cameras instead of one and share the data simultaneously with troops on the ground.
 

 

 

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