US armed drones found infected with computer virus
dailykos.com
dailykos.com
There was a lot of healthy skepticism on HN when it was first posted http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3085004
I don't use Windows for work or development purposes (I have 2 windows machines at home used as iTunes machines), so my question is: are there Windows versions available that are stripped down? It just seems that the amount of exploits that come out per week/month/year for Windows would get in the way of operational missions.
They do stripped down versions such as windows embedded. You can strip a desktop install down to virtually nothing as well and it is very secure. It is however beyond most people to do so.
By changing the platform they've effectively saved their butts by pointing at the vendor. The real problem is incompetence and cost cutting.
I predict rootkit drones next as they haven't actually solved the real problem.
edit for the morons who blindly Downvote this: I spent a number of years building secure systems for the UK MoD. There were no attack vectors at all of any kind human or network, so the fact they were infected was purely incompetence.
NOTE: This does not mean that Windows NT is C2 certified (no operating system is ever C2 certified). Certification applies to a particular installation, including hardware, software, and the environment that the system is in. It is up to an individual site to become C2 certified.
The PCs were locked in metal cabinets, cables shielded, all hardware ports disabled, no physical connection anywhere to the internet, vpn+checkpoint to other sites which were also C2, software was all source vetted and escrowed before being allowed on the network, crypto everywhere. Factory floor was shielded as well to prevent RF escaping, datacentre was three gated inside the facility and there were lockdown pads and access control both biometric and smartcard on every door.
The software eng was the same except even heavier locked down with GPO and LSP.
We could have put an apple II in there and it'd be C2.
Indeed. For where would your average windows consumer be, without a useful selection of botnets, keyloggers and trojans, installed silently for their browsing convenience?
That said, I know you can reasonably lock down the older versions of windows NT, and really lock down many DOS variants, but I would say that the main reason for this is because they have been thoroughly studied and patched, rather than through careful design in the first place.
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2011/08/31/linux_kernel_securit...
Oh wait, you might say, that wasn't a hack, well what's the difference says I? Stuxnet got in through a USB key...
I've never once had a virus, worm or trojan.
It's perfectly secure. The main issue is that most of the fuckwits out there click OK without reading or understanding every time. How's MS supposed to deal with idiots?
I'm actually sitting here with a ThinkGeek PEBKAC T-shirt on appropriately.
And probably no one ever wanted to attack you as a specific, known individual. They probably would have succeeded.
And nothing is ever perfectly secure. If you actually think that then you should take your t-shirt under advisement. Always assume that a system is compromised unless you have very good evidence to the contrary.
Just imagine, somebody with the intention to do harm having control over drones like that. It would be the ultimate remote strike, using their own systems, thát would rock their world the world!
http://articles.latimes.com/2012/jun/06/news/la-pn-mccain-ca...