Insurgents' $26 Drone Video Hack Works On Almost Every Military Plane

So, Iraqi insurgents found a way to hack into Predator drones' unencrypted video feeds with cheap Windows shareware. Ridiculous? Obviously! But also kind of minor—the story was more embarrassing than alarming; a gaffe, not a disaster. Then, this.

Wired's Danger Room found the whole situation kind of bewildering, so they went to their military sources to find out exactly what happened:


So the military fielded a rough, poorly secured video system on drones and AC-130s. We already knew that! The story's been reported, and late night comedians will have a good rest of the week. But there's a lovely twist:

Since then, nearly every airplane in the American fleet - from F-16 and F/A-18 fighters to A-10 attack planes to Harrier jump jets to B-1B bombers has been outfitted with equipment that lets them transmit to ROVERs. Thousands of ROVER terminals have been distributed to troops in Afghanistan and Iraq...

These insurgents didn't hack into a single type of drone; they found a cheap, dead-simple way to hack into the military's primary airborne surveillance system.

Is the ability to eavesdrop on live video streams from airplanes a significant strategic risk? It's debatable. But did this hack make a couple of dudes in a basement in Basrah feel like Angelina Jolie in (noted Western pornographic infidel film) Hackers? Hell yes it did. [Danger Room]