Slashdot Mirror
Virus Infection Hits UK's Ministry of Defense, Including Warships
Retrovirus writes with a link to a Register story which says that the UK's "Ministry of Defence confirmed today that it has suffered virus infections which have shut down 'a small number' of MoD systems, most notably including admin networks aboard Royal Navy warships."
Somebody sunk their Battleship.
Wasn't it big news about a year ago that the UK Navy were switching to Windows?
Yeah, here it is:
http://tech.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08%2F12%2F18%2F006226&from=rss
Slashdot article from December 18 2008
One more reason to use Linux: "Your country's security depends on it."
I'm surprised something as crucial as Defence systems are running a version of Windows.
All your base are belong to "someone other than yourselves"
I'm not currently allowed to do security-cleared work in UK, because I've just spent several years living in that hotbed of communism and espionage, New Zealand. Pity the MoD don't take such a rigorous approach to basic IT competence.
"It doesn't cost enough, and it makes too much sense."
Of course they went to Windows: /var/log/messages"
Clicking Torpedo and then the enemy's battleship on a screen is much more efficient than typing
"attack --weapon torpedo --count 2 --coords 42394799879x3179478912"
and then waiting for the result in
"tail -f
mov ax,4c00h
int 21h
http://ars.userfriendly.org/cartoons/?id=20081228
Exactly. I'm surprise those computers got infected with Windows in the first place. Usually it takes a CD to spread that virus.
ITV News was stating it was also effecting 6 RAF admin bases as well and they outbreak has been running since well before Christmas. All of this hear-say as the MOD (rightly IMHO) are keeping alot of this info to themselves.
Also no signs of how the malware got into the systems, accidently or a deliverate 'attack'.
given the time to clear up and the large number of systems it's compromised it's a little worrying to the least.
now that everyone knows this account is fake, could you stop using it?
at least to show some respect to the man who passed away so recently
Wow, it really must be the 21st century. For millennia, when navies had problems with viruses, it was the sailors being a little too loose while on shore leave. Today, the ships are the ones getting infected due to open ports.
Admiral Adama never would have let that happen on his ship.
Well, its blindingly obvious that the Royal Navy is worth zilch and run by nincompoops and incompetents since July 31st 1970, 6 bells of the forenoon watch. That was when the last rum ration was issued.
So the move to use Microsoft Windows and the subsequent(and consequent) series of disasters associated with such an abysmal piece of software does not strike on as "odd" with the same rear-admirals (which probably carry the word "rear-" in front of their title in order to find their posteriors) who had risen up their ranks without their daily rum ration.
It should have been clear in 1970 that the Navy which ruled the waves for 200 years wouldn't take something like having their rum taken away lightly; and that most probably their best sailors and officers would turn away in disgust of such a move, leaving only the incompetent and spineless to run and ruin the Navy. And in recent times, leaving a software company from the USA to ruin the Navy. Perhaps they realised the case was hopeless and retired to a half-pay life of binge-drinking; at least they could have their rum on shore, to drown their shame in.
Such a sad state.
"The more prohibitions there are, The poorer the people will be" -- Lao Tse
:facepalm:
"We are the music makers, and we are the dreamers of dreams [...]."
I was at a Linux Worldexpo in London several years ago when someone from the audience piped up about Windows on warships during the Great Linux Debate dinnertime session. I think he was a journalist from a Computing publication, but this was exactly the scenario he painted back then.
Ever wish your computer was as secure as a battleship? Now it is.
Since the britons installed Windows, every sunday, late at night, pirates in the Irish sea have remoted their ships to a buccaneer's den on the Isle of Man.
Just look at the guy doing their IT. "Sometimes I just switch it off and on again, heh heh." Sounds like Windows to me.
Armies battling computer viruses at least don't engage in other kinds of warfare. Let's keep it that way.
All the computers had MS Antivirus 2009 installed on them...and they still got infected with a virus!
Doctors destroy health, lawyers destroy justice, universities destroy knowledge, religion destroys spirituality
As it was only the admin network effected, then not unless all that's required to start a world war is that someone spoofs an e-mail as such:
To: Rear Admiral Whoever
From: Vladmir Putin
Subject: lol u suck
im in ur macines stealing ur data
"A ship in harbor is safe, but that is not what ships were built for. Go out and get infested."
(Sorry, Admiral Hopper. Just can't help...)
Colorless green Cthulhu waits dreaming furiously.
If all armies in the world switched to Windows we would have world peace.....
In WWII Japanese troop strength was determined by tracking logistics. Judging the amount of water requested delivered to islands allowed the allies to determine troop levels on those islands.
There are no non-critical systems in war time.