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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.
A year is roughly 29 days long now?
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"
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
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
FTA:
Since 6 Jan 09 the performance of the MOD IT systems in a number of areas was affected by a virus. Immediate action was taken to isolate the problem to stop the virus from spreading. This meant that some people were without regular IT access (i.e. email, internet). There have been no infections detected on any networks with sensitive information.
AltSlashdot. Because f'k the beta
Actually the article you're linking to only refers to the nuclear submarines
and the article doesn't tell whether this infection affected them as well.
Still, I hope this gives second thoughts to any people in charge
who considering to "spare money" by installing Windows on such sensitive systems...
AltSlashdot. Because f'k the beta
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.
Too bad for the UK Defense department. It's just over the 7 day return policy for ordering goods over the internet, so they can't return Windows for a refund.
Sleep your way to a whiter smile...date a dentist!
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
Well, when you are living in a window-less basement^^^ er, I mean, your command center, 29 days seems like a whole year :)
Maybe the Norton 30-day trial has expired.
No sig today...
I beg to disagree. A search of publicly available documents shows that NavyStar has Windows and DOS components. Fujitsu's ITSEC certification report (No. P230), in particular, shows Windows XP, Windows XPe, and DOS clients. See diagram on page 10.
Also, the article doesn't say that the servers were hit. Only that the system was based on a server cabinet and cable-networked PCs. As I understand it, NavyStar is a hardware platform of ruggedized PC components.
Let me ask you a question: if someone was born on 01.01.0 how old would he/she get at the 01.01.2000?
There is no such person. There is no year zero.
Bring back Sirius Punk!
On behalf of Slashdot I accept that you were right and that we should have listened to you. Furthermore I bestow upon you the title of "Psyker".
How do you kill that which has no life?