(Image Source: TopNews.in) 

BY ALEX OLGIN
ANCHOR ANA COMPAIN-ROMERO

The US Predator and Reaper Drones have been infiltrated by a computer virus. A writer for The Atlantic explains...

“The virus runs a keylogger that records every movement of the people operating our drones. So far, it hasn't tried to make contact with any outside source to transmit that information, but somehow that doesn't make me feel any better about it.”

The Global Post notes the virus has not affected missions or claimed any classified information, but it also won’t go away.

“‘We keep wiping it off, and it keeps coming back,’ said one of the three sources that spoke to Wired. “We think it's benign. But we just don't know.’” 

TG Daily quoted an U.S. Air Forces spokesperson who says he would not reply to questions about the virus to protect military security.

"We generally do not discuss specific vulnerabilities, threats, or responses to our computer networks, since that helps people looking to exploit or attack our systems to refine their approach.”

A writer for Wired’s Danger Room broke the story after speaking to three unnamed sources. He says the U.S.’s drone systems are infamous for security flaws.

“Many Reapers and Predators don’t encrypt the video they transmit to American troops on the ground. In the summer of 2009, U.S. forces discovered ‘days and days and hours and hours’ of the drone footage on the laptops of Iraqi insurgents. A $26 piece of software allowed the militants to capture the video.”

A blogger from IT World says fixing the drones’ security system requires a major overhaul. 

“Fixing that huge gap would require upgrades to the hardware not only to the drones and hardware used by their remote pilots, but also to every piece of equipment in the war zones that are designed to either receive drone video for real-time intelligence or its communications capablities [sic] to relay requests for strikes.”

The military servers and control stations are disconnected from public Internet. The virus is thought to be spread through the removable hard drives crew members use to update maps and transmit videos. 

Transcript by Newsy.