Insurgents Hacking Drone

Fresh from the WSJ this morning.It seems Iraqi insurgents are beginning to steal signals from US drones. Evidence backing John Robb’s Global Guerillas theory seems to mount daily. Here’s the article

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 Iraq used software programs such as SkyGrabber—available for as little as $25.95 on the Internet—to regularly capture drone video feeds, according to a person familiar with reports on the matter.

U.S. officials say there is no evidence that militants were able to take control of the drones or otherwise interfere with their flights. Still, the intercepts could give America’s enemies battlefield advantages by removing the element of surprise from certain missions and making it easier for insurgents to determine which roads and buildings are under U.S. surveillance.

Read the rest.

Comment: This is the other side of technology that we haven’t heard much about. While certainly it is not a surprise to many experts, it is an area that seems largely undiscussed in public. I would hope the military is already planning for contingencies that include the enemy taking control of unmanned land, sea and air vehicles. But the article continuously stating that things are ok, and no damage was done makes this author rather suspicious. One has to wonder whether this is also occuring in Afghanistan and Pakistan. The ‘honeymoon phase’ of unmanned vehicles is slowlycoming to an end.