US Drones Infected With Virus

Someone is logging the keystrokes of drone operators
By Kevin Spak,  Newser Staff
Posted Oct 7, 2011 2:19 PM CDT
US Drones Infected With Virus
In this June 13, 2010, file photo a U.S. Predator unmanned drone armed with a missile stands on the tarmac of Kandahar military airport in Afghanistan.   (AP Photo/Massoud Hossaini, Pool, File)

America’s robot assassins have all been infected with a “keylogger” virus that tracks every move their pilots make, sources tell Wired. The military isn’t sure how the computers at Creech Air Force Base in Nevada—the nerve center that controls most drone missions—got infected, or who they might be sending their information to, if anyone. They do know that it has hit both classified and unclassified computers, and resisted all attempts at removal.

“We keep wiping it off, and it keeps coming back,” one source says. “We think it’s benign. But we just don’t know.” This isn’t the first security breach for the drones—the video they send back, for example, is not encrypted, and in 2009 the US discovered that Iraqis had swiped loads of footage with $26 software. (More drones stories.)

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