The Wall Street Journal and the New York Times are reporting that Iraqi insurgents have hacked into military spy drone video using an inexpensive, off-the-shelf computer program called Skygrabber, which was developed by the Russian company SkySoftware to intercept music, photos, video, programs and other content that can be downloaded from the Internet.
The name is pretty ironic, then.
Apparently, the snafu was discovered in July 2009, when the U.S. military captured militant who had a laptop with the video feeds on it.
The communication link between the drone and the ground station is not encrypted, and by using the software, just about anyone can monitor the unmanned autonomous aircraft and track it. John Bigs at CrunchGear called it packet sniffing. Technically not a "hack," since the movements of the plane are not being altered. But the fact that one can spy on the spy drone, well that's enough.
Perhaps this will prompt Obama to appoint a cybersecurity coordinator, a position that he promised to fill back in May, but remains open.
Any candidates?
AP Photo/Ross D. Franklin
Tags: Autonomous Robots, Aviation, Computer and Internet Security, Cybercrime, Spy Equipment,
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