[MP-Ryan]

Closed system or not, it had to have been exposed to the outside world to get this infection in the first place.

RTFA.

Oh look, snark. How original.

I did read the article. If it's a closed system, it doesn't get a virus. The virus has to come from somewhere outside, and someone is responsible for exposing it. Maybe I have more experience reading between the lines of military-spec canned bull**** but they basically admitted as much.

I literally JUST posted how they plugged external drives into the machines in order to transfer maps across.  So, had you read the article in its entirety, or just read my previous post, you would have seen that staring you in the face.  So yes, snark, and well-deserved snark too.

The keylogger came from an external hard drive plugged into the closed-system in order to transfer maps.  This is neither surprising nor particularly frightening... well, except that they don't scan external drives moving around the department, but the drone systems themselves appear to have been just fine.  The fact that a computer somewhere in the military got a malware infection isn't in the slightest bit surprising either - plenty of systems with low-clearance requirements and fairly open access in government, and security on those systems will be by the lowest bidder.  And if one of those was used to put the maps on the external drives in the first place, there's your source.

This isn't like someone hacked a top-secret military network, guys.  This literally could have happened because a frickin' secretary brought pictures of her kids into work on a thumb drive.

[MP-Ryan]

Could a virus then put whatever data was collected on the next hard drive that gets plugged in?

Possible but unlikely.  That's not usually how keyloggers work.

[Alex Heartnet]

But time and time again, the so-called “air gaps” between classified and public networks have been bridged, largely through the use of discs and removable drives. In late 2008, for example, the drives helped introduce the agent.btz worm to hundreds of thousands of Defense Department computers. The Pentagon is still disinfecting machines, three years later.

Use of the drives is now severely restricted throughout the military.

Again, from the wired.com article.   THIS is how a virus spreads within a closed system, and likely how the drones got infected in the first place.

EDIT:  Someone beat me to it already....

[karajorma]

Possible but unlikely.  That's not usually how keyloggers work.

Perhaps that's because no one has realised the kind of non-networked computer keyloggers can sometimes end up on.....until now at least. It wouldn't surprise me one bit if someone was right now creating a keylogger designed to do exactly that.

[TwentyPercentCooler]

Closed system or not, it had to have been exposed to the outside world to get this infection in the first place.

RTFA.

Oh look, snark. How original.

I did read the article. If it's a closed system, it doesn't get a virus. The virus has to come from somewhere outside, and someone is responsible for exposing it. Maybe I have more experience reading between the lines of military-spec canned bull**** but they basically admitted as much.

I literally JUST posted how they plugged external drives into the machines in order to transfer maps across.  So, had you read the article in its entirety, or just read my previous post, you would have seen that staring you in the face.  So yes, snark, and well-deserved snark too.

The keylogger came from an external hard drive plugged into the closed-system in order to transfer maps.  This is neither surprising nor particularly frightening... well, except that they don't scan external drives moving around the department, but the drone systems themselves appear to have been just fine.  The fact that a computer somewhere in the military got a malware infection isn't in the slightest bit surprising either - plenty of systems with low-clearance requirements and fairly open access in government, and security on those systems will be by the lowest bidder.  And if one of those was used to put the maps on the external drives in the first place, there's your source.

This isn't like someone hacked a top-secret military network, guys.  This literally could have happened because a frickin' secretary brought pictures of her kids into work on a thumb drive.

Well deserved snark? We're saying the exact same thing. Somebody had a thumb drive that had been outside of the network, they brought it in (likely flying in the face of regulations), the closed system got exposed. Chill.

[Bobboau]

Possible but unlikely.  That's not usually how keyloggers work.

upon reading this my immediate thought was "hmmm... I bet I could make one that did that" what do you thing the people who make these things are thinking right now?

[MP-Ryan]

Possible but unlikely.  That's not usually how keyloggers work.

upon reading this my immediate thought was "hmmm... I bet I could make one that did that" what do you thing the people who make these things are thinking right now?

Sure, just saying that if this was one of the multitudes in the wild right now then it probably doesn't have that functionality.

[Colonol Dekker]

Our (British Army) MilCommNet is codenamed Skynet V.




Could it be related?

[FreeSpaceFreak]

... and thus, by 2367, we still have manned space fighters

[CommanderDJ]

... and thus, by 2367, we still have manned space fighters

WIN.

[Locutus of Borg]

There is no fate but the one the drones make for us.

[T-LoW]

That reply must've come with this username.