Insurgents
Hack US Drones
$26 Software Is Used to Breach Key Weapons in
DECEMBER 17, 2009
This is an extremely
serious event. In a matter of days, Iran
has hacked the drone system, they have entered into Irai soil and seized an oil
well without a shot fired, (Obama having 100,000 troops in Iraq with no
response) The Iranians have also hacked twitter a low security network with
many members being government names and movers and shakers (More than likely
seeking to reverse engineer their way into government portals to hack the
Federal Government and the US Military.
These three moves in
themselves is the beginnings of a bold series of in
your face attacks or declaration of war against the
Now the emboldened
Iranians are goading Obama knowing full well they have the license to do
whatever evil they desire and the Obama and US military will not respond.
By SIOBHAN
GORMAN, YOCHI
J. DREAZEN and AUGUST
COLE
WASHINGTON -- Militants in Iraq have used $26 off-the-shelf software to
intercept live video feeds from U.S. Predator drones, potentially providing
them with information they need to evade or monitor U.S. military operations.
Senior
defense and intelligence officials said Iranian-backed insurgents intercepted
the video feeds by taking advantage of an unprotected communications link in
some of the remotely flown planes' systems. Shiite fighters in
The
drone intercepts mark the emergence of a shadow cyber war within the U.S.-led
conflicts overseas. They also point to a potentially serious vulnerability in
The
Obama administration has come to rely heavily on the unmanned drones because
they allow the
The
stolen video feeds also indicate that
In
the summer 2009 incident, the military found "days and days and hours and
hours of proof" that the feeds were being intercepted and shared with
multiple extremist groups, the person said. "It is part of their kit
now."
A
senior defense official said that James Clapper, the Pentagon's intelligence
chief, assessed the
"There
did appear to be a vulnerability," the defense
official said. "There's been no harm done to troops or missions
compromised as a result of it, but there's an issue that we can take care of
and we're doing so."
Senior
military and intelligence officials said the
Some
of the most detailed evidence of intercepted feeds has been discovered in
The
Pentagon is deploying record numbers of drones to
Gen.
Deptula, speaking to reporters Wednesday, said there were inherent risks to
using drones since they are remotely controlled and need to send and receive
video and other data over great distances. "Those kinds of things are
subject to listening and exploitation," he said, adding the military was
trying to solve the problems by better encrypting the drones' feeds.
The
potential drone vulnerability lies in an unencrypted downlink between the
unmanned craft and ground control. The
Last
December,
The
militants use programs such as SkyGrabber, from Russian company SkySoftware.
Andrew Solonikov, one of the software's developers, said he was unaware that
his software could be used to intercept drone feeds. "It was developed to
intercept music, photos, video, programs and other content that other users
download from the Internet -- no military data or other commercial data, only
free legal content," he said by email from Russia.
Officials
stepped up efforts to prevent insurgents from intercepting video feeds after
the July incident. The difficulty, officials said, is that adding encryption to
a network that is more than a decade old involves more than placing a new piece
of equipment on individual drones. Instead, many components of the network
linking the drones to their operators in the
Predator
drones are built by General Atomics Aeronautical Systems Inc. of
In
an email, a spokeswoman said that for security reasons, the company couldn't
comment on "specific data link capabilities and limitations."
Fixing
the security gap would have caused delays, according to current and former
military officials. It would have added to the Predator's price. Some officials
worried that adding encryption would make it harder to quickly share time-sensitive
data within the
"There's
a balance between pragmatics and sophistication," said Mike Wynne, Air
Force Secretary from 2005 to 2008.
The
Air Force has staked its future on unmanned aerial vehicles. Drones account for
36% of the planes in the service's proposed 2010 budget.
Today,
the Air Force is buying hundreds of Reaper drones, a newer model, whose video feeds could be intercepted in much the same way as with the
Predators, according to people familiar with the matter. A Reaper costs between
$10 million and $12 million each and is faster and better armed than the
Predator. General Atomics expects the Air Force to buy as many as 375 Reapers.