Fourth US Navy Collision This Year Raises Suspicion of Cyber-Attacks (thenextweb.com)

An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Next Web: Early Monday morning a U.S. Navy Destroyer collided with a merchant vessel off the coast of Singapore. The U.S. Navy initially reported that 10 sailors were missing, and today found "some of the remains" in flooded compartments. While Americans mourn the loss of our brave warriors, top brass is looking for answers. Monday's crash involving the USS John McCain is the fourth in the area, and possibly the most difficult to understand. So far this year 17 U.S. sailors have died in the Pacific southeast due to seemingly accidental collisions with civilian vessels.

Should four collisions in the same geographical area be chalked up to coincidence? Could a military vessel be hacked? In essence, what if GPS spoofing or administrative lockout caused personnel to be unaware of any imminent danger or unable to respond? The Chief of Naval Operations (CNO) says there's no reason to think it was a cyber-attack, but they're looking into it: "2 clarify Re: possibility of cyber intrusion or sabotage, no indications right now...but review will consider all possibilities," tweeted Adm. John Richardson. The obvious suspects -- if a sovereign nation is behind any alleged attacks -- would be Russia, China, and North Korea, all of whom have reasonable access to the location of all four incidents. It may be chilling to imagine such a bold risk, but it's not outlandish to think a government might be testing cyber-attack capabilities in the field.

Comments

never attribute to malice that which is incompeten

[lkcl]

does anyone else remember the "flagship US airforce carrier" that, back in the mid 1990s, had to be TOWED into harbour... because it was running Window NT 4.0 systems... which had just crashed across the *entire* ship? and does anyone else remember soldiers running Sony BMG Root-kitted CDs which then illegally sent out a listing of CLASSIFIED FILENAMES OFF TO SONY'S SERVERS?? do we not remember these things??

there is a *really good reason* why the NSA refuses to permit windows systems on its premises. why cannot the U.S. Military get it through its thick fucking head that running an OS that's been cost-shaved by a company that REFUSES TO LET ITS SECURITY TEAM MAKE CRITICAL CHANGES because the Security Director is told, every single fucking time "your proposed security improvement will cost us money. get lost and come back when you have a quotes security quotes fix that actually makes us some money".

we KNOW it's insecure. we KNOW it can be root-kitted (thank you NSA). we KNOW that there is ransomware and christ knows what else. so i don't understand why people do not understand that to run the Windows Operating System is tantamount to self-harm, and any Military that runs the Windows OS is basically, sad to say it, ASKING - no is DESPERATE - to be screwed over by anyone and everyone.

Re:A better theory

[Shinobi]

Except that the merchant ships were in a TSS, and the destroyer apparently tried to cross behind one cargo ship, ahead of another, and got hit by the third, that had been obstructed by the first cargo ship.

The Fitzgerald also ran across a TSS

Re:A better theory

[Shinobi]

Here's a reference video of the AIS tracks for the cargo vessels, collision handles shortly after the 50s mark.
.
https://youtu.be/vlrA36GzHNs

Alnic MC is in a cluster of ships together with Team Oslo, Guang Zhou, Hyundai Global and a bit behind them was the Long Hu San
Observe the evasive maneuver that first the Guang Zhou undertakes, and then the sharp turn to port the Alnic MC tries to perform, to avoid the collision.

Re:never attribute to malice that which is incompe

[Anonymous Coward]

It's a shame that you only remember the rumors and myths instead of finding out the facts. The aircraft carrier you're referring to is the USS Yorktown, which did suffer computer-related problems around 1997. But if the problem was just that the OS crashed, they could have just rebooted the damn thing!

The actual problem was a crew member entered a 0 into a field in a network database, causing all of the software using the database to fail after attempting to divide by 0. The ship was dead in the water for under three hours and returned to port under its own power.

In other words, this was a problem with the software running the ship, not the OS! Considering that most bugs are in the software running on the OS and not the OS itself, this should not be a surprise.

dom

Re:Why

[currently_awake]

There are 3 things preventing collisions at sea: 1-the warship has navigation radar. 2-the warship has bridge wing lookouts looking for ships, and ships have lights at night. 3-the civilian ship is also looking around. Yes, an American warship is running windows and is therefore an insecure environment, and could be hacked. But that won't stop the bridge wing lookouts from seeing the other ship coming, and a warship is much more agile (and faster) than a (much larger) cargo freighter. The Law of the Sea says the larger ship has right-of-way, so there is no dispute over who must get out of the way.

There is no hack that should work

[Excelcia]

There is no single hack that should work to cause an accident like this. It doesn't matter if GPS is hacked or even off. It doesn't matter if your navigation system is faulty or given the wrong information. It doesn't matter if your radars are down. The fact of the matter is, ships have been navigating in congested waters at night for hundreds of years and there is no hack that should serve to cause a collision.

Bridge watchkeepers are supposed to be trained in heads up visual navigation. GPS, ECPINS, AIS, navigation radars - they are all useful tools, but a watchkeeper is supposed to be trained to know when those tools are lying to to them. Because it really isn't a matter of if, but when something will happen to cause one or more of those tools to lie to you. This is especially true of warship watchkeepers who are supposed to be trained to operate in places where there may be denial of service for GPS or where AIS is being spoofed.

I wrote about something like this before - almost two years ago. American warships have a reputation in NATO as being driven by amateurs. During fleet manoeuvers, the rest of us actively plot wider safety bubbles around American ships because they are erratic and have a tendency to simply go the wrong direction and just not care.

This isn't a cyber attack. There is no attack on anything on the American ship that should have defeated the watchkeeper's mark 1 eyeball, and hacking a container ship to hit a warship with is like hacking a semi truck and thinking you are going to use it to ram a dirt bike on an open field. It's simply not possible to hit a warship with a container vessel if the warship has a watchkeeper that is awake.

Re:There is no hack that should work

[quiet_guy]

Most of your post is paraphrased from a recent gCaptain article that was equally erroneous. US Navy ships give distances in nautical miles just like the rest of the maritime world. Contrary to your claim, no vessel I've ever spoken to uses relative bearings on the radio - because that only makes sense if I know your heading to start with, so I can do the math to figure out what you mean. "off my starboard bow"? Sure. I can see that one. Long chain of command between captain and helmsman - sure, if long = about ten feet. Helmsman works for the Officer of the Deck, who works for the CO. Merchant version? Helmsman works for the Officer of the Watch, who works for the Master. Navy captains never talk on the radio? Guess I was confused every time I did. Every CO I know has a radio next to their chair on the bridge, and uses it when required. Yes, I'll let the Officer of the Deck try first - because that's how they learn - but I'm going to step in if we need to. How do I know this? Five years at sea in command of US Navy ships.

Re:MH370 - paging CNN

[ShanghaiBill]

A good conspiracy theorist would not squander his credibilty by getting basic facts wrong, like saying a collision occurred in the "Pacific southeast" when it actually occurred north of the equator in the Western Pacific. The Southeastern Pacific is off the coast of Chile, about 16,000 km away, or roughly halfway around the world.

Re:Why

[houghi]

The Law of the Sea says the larger ship has right-of-way, so there is no dispute over who must get out of the way.

No, it doesn't. There are clear rules who has right of way.
If you are in a small vessel, it is WISE to go out of the way, as you can maneuver better than a heavy ship. It does not mean it has right of way.

It starts with the fact that a commercial vessel has right of way over a commercial vessel. Next there are very specific maritime laws that determine who has right of way. (No vessel ever has absolute "right of way" over other vessels. Rather, there can be a "give way" (burdened) vessel and a "stand on" (privileged) vessel, or there may be two give way vessels with no stand on vessel)

A simple explanation of how stupid it would be is that you have NO idea how heavy a ship is. A smaller ship in length can easily be heavier than a much larger ship and you have no way of knowing.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... for a very basic idea and links to the rest.

As this very basic idea is wrong, I need to assume that you also have no idea about the rest.