Iranian hackers were able to get control of the American UAV and plant it on their territory
Some time ago, news appeared on the Internet that the Iranian military was able to land a Lockheed Martin unmanned aerial vehicle (drone) RQ-170 on its territory with little or no damage. The essence of the Iranians' statement was that they managed to reprogram the drone’s GPS navigation system and, replacing legitimate GPS signals, forced him to “believe” that he was on his territory and the landing team came from the legitimate owners of the device - the American air force base in Afghanistan.
Of course, official sources completely denied the fact of intercepting a drone, which is so advanced a device that even his photo was never published. Such a reaction looks quite natural against the background of well-known scandals related to the infection of the Predator and Reaper UAV control systems, as well as the incident (as reported by the Wall Street Journal), when several hours of video was recorded on the hard drive of a Shiite laptop that was transmitted from American UAVs. and which was considered by the US military to be completely secret (for this, by the way, it was alleged, they used the program SkyGrabber - Russian-made).
Despite the yellowness of such headlines - although quite respected publications wrote about them, such as the Wall Street Journal, Discovery, Bloomberg - former Google CEO Eric Schmidt spoke on this subject a couple of days ago. The essence of his words was that he did not understand where Iranian hackers showed such high qualifications and, moreover, the American administration considers this a threat to the security of their state.
Naturally, the very first thought that arises from reading such news is that the Americans are preparing the implicit ground for future military incidents. To confirm this, it is enough to recall the statements of the Pentagon that cyber attacks on and outside the United States may well be stopped by a military strike against a guilty state.
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Nevertheless, the quite respected publication The Christian Science Monitor published an interview with an Iranian engineer who allegedly was directly involved in the interception operation of the RQ-170 drone, and which revealed a number of technical details of this interception.
What did he say?
With the help of electronic warfare (some experts believe that this could be the Russian 1L222 Avtobaz complex), the Iranians broke the satellite communications channel between the RQ-170 and the ground control station located in the United States. In such a situation, the drone's software puts the device into autopilot mode, in which he must return to the US Air Force base in Afghanistan - the home base. The autopilot system uses the GPS system and it is through the navigation system - by replacing or simply drowning the signals - the Iranian military could deceive the drone, who considered that he had already arrived at his destination and landed almost safely in Iran.
To the credit of the publication that published the interview, it was not limited to one opinion and inquired what John Pike, an expert in data encryption and satellite communications, president of Globalsecurity.org, thinks about this. He questioned the veracity of the information told by the Iranian. The essence of his objections is as follows: the GPS system is a two-tier system, one level is a system for universal use, the data of which is not encrypted, and the second level of the system is a level for military use, the data of which are encrypted using crypto-resistant algorithms P (Y); In principle, GPS general purpose teams can be completely replaced, but if Iranian hackers managed to crack the P (Y) encryption system, then they would not be prevented from using more extensive attack tools on the US than just playing with a drone.
However, Richard Langley, a GPS expert at the University of New Brunswick in Canada, noted that Iranian military experts did not need to break the P (Y) code. It is enough just to drown out the frequency with which the “military” GPS signals are transmitted, which would cause the RQ-170 flight control system to go into autopilot mode, and then, using the same powerful “fake” signal, put the device in that place, where the Iranian military found it necessary.
In other words, the fact of theft of an ultramodern spy device worth $ 6 million does not look so incredible, since the mechanism of such an operation is recognized as quite realistic by technical experts, and it’s not a shame to state the fact that it’s not only informational publications. And given the fact that Lockheed Martin, the maker of the RQ-170 drone, became the victim of a hacker attack this spring, the question of what its results were causing to ask one more questioned whether it was a period in the life of modern society, when The use of computer systems can result not only in a series of unpleasant incidents, but also cause more serious consequences, should they be at the disposal of people whose intentions are far from peaceful?
Of course, official sources completely denied the fact of intercepting a drone, which is so advanced a device that even his photo was never published. Such a reaction looks quite natural against the background of well-known scandals related to the infection of the Predator and Reaper UAV control systems, as well as the incident (as reported by the Wall Street Journal), when several hours of video was recorded on the hard drive of a Shiite laptop that was transmitted from American UAVs. and which was considered by the US military to be completely secret (for this, by the way, it was alleged, they used the program SkyGrabber - Russian-made).
Despite the yellowness of such headlines - although quite respected publications wrote about them, such as the Wall Street Journal, Discovery, Bloomberg - former Google CEO Eric Schmidt spoke on this subject a couple of days ago. The essence of his words was that he did not understand where Iranian hackers showed such high qualifications and, moreover, the American administration considers this a threat to the security of their state.
Naturally, the very first thought that arises from reading such news is that the Americans are preparing the implicit ground for future military incidents. To confirm this, it is enough to recall the statements of the Pentagon that cyber attacks on and outside the United States may well be stopped by a military strike against a guilty state.
')
Nevertheless, the quite respected publication The Christian Science Monitor published an interview with an Iranian engineer who allegedly was directly involved in the interception operation of the RQ-170 drone, and which revealed a number of technical details of this interception.
What did he say?
With the help of electronic warfare (some experts believe that this could be the Russian 1L222 Avtobaz complex), the Iranians broke the satellite communications channel between the RQ-170 and the ground control station located in the United States. In such a situation, the drone's software puts the device into autopilot mode, in which he must return to the US Air Force base in Afghanistan - the home base. The autopilot system uses the GPS system and it is through the navigation system - by replacing or simply drowning the signals - the Iranian military could deceive the drone, who considered that he had already arrived at his destination and landed almost safely in Iran.
To the credit of the publication that published the interview, it was not limited to one opinion and inquired what John Pike, an expert in data encryption and satellite communications, president of Globalsecurity.org, thinks about this. He questioned the veracity of the information told by the Iranian. The essence of his objections is as follows: the GPS system is a two-tier system, one level is a system for universal use, the data of which is not encrypted, and the second level of the system is a level for military use, the data of which are encrypted using crypto-resistant algorithms P (Y); In principle, GPS general purpose teams can be completely replaced, but if Iranian hackers managed to crack the P (Y) encryption system, then they would not be prevented from using more extensive attack tools on the US than just playing with a drone.
However, Richard Langley, a GPS expert at the University of New Brunswick in Canada, noted that Iranian military experts did not need to break the P (Y) code. It is enough just to drown out the frequency with which the “military” GPS signals are transmitted, which would cause the RQ-170 flight control system to go into autopilot mode, and then, using the same powerful “fake” signal, put the device in that place, where the Iranian military found it necessary.
In other words, the fact of theft of an ultramodern spy device worth $ 6 million does not look so incredible, since the mechanism of such an operation is recognized as quite realistic by technical experts, and it’s not a shame to state the fact that it’s not only informational publications. And given the fact that Lockheed Martin, the maker of the RQ-170 drone, became the victim of a hacker attack this spring, the question of what its results were causing to ask one more questioned whether it was a period in the life of modern society, when The use of computer systems can result not only in a series of unpleasant incidents, but also cause more serious consequences, should they be at the disposal of people whose intentions are far from peaceful?
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/135150/
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