US Military Surveillance Drones Are Being Grounded By The Pentagon

[Judi Lynn]

Source: Newsy


Military branches haven't been able to add drone specialists to their infantry squads because the tech could be hackable.


By Tyler Adkisson
July 5, 2018

As part of the U.S. military's effort to provide infantry personnel with new surveillance tools, branches like the Marines Corps planned to give every infantry squad small drones. But the Pentagon has began grounding some quadcopters which may present cybersecurity concerns.

In May, the Department of Defense began issuing memos to stop certain branches from purchasing drones, saying the agency didn't have an adequate way to test whether the tech posed a cybersecurity risk. Some of the most popular drones currently used by the U.S. military are Chinese-made, and officials worried they could be installed with malware that would allow users to be spied on.

The ban has affected some branches more heavily than others. The Marines were forced to ground 600 drones after the memo came out and had to stop shipment of an additional 200. The Air Force was forced to suspend using about 70 of its drones.

The Marines have been able to get some drones back up in the air by asking for exemptions from the Department of Defense. But those exemptions still limit where the drones can be flown and who can fly them. As of now, the Marines may only fly drones within the U.S. or if the operator is a forward-deployed Marine, like someone at a U.S. military base overseas.



Read more: https://www.newsy.com/stories/military-surveillance-drones-being-grounded-by-the-pentagon/

[dameatball]

1. Interesting article. Thank you.

The Russian hacking also did a number on opposition weaponry in Crimea.

[LiberalArkie]

2. I don't know if people realize it but the U.S. used to have the facilities to develop devices like

drones in country. The U.S. used to invent and manufacture most of the electronics in the world. That is one of those believe it or not things.

[rickford66]

3. I've worked on defense systems which used proprietary software.

No way a third party could hack it. It was assembler and very hard to update. There were a couple manual steps in the process. A hacker would have to duplicate all the steps I did, then install the chips in the device. I think it would have to be an inside job to hack it.

[LiberalArkie]

4. A U.S. company used to invent just about every technology.

Even invented satellites, transistors, solar cells. Just about everything. But alas Bell Labs is now a Finnish company called Nokia Bell Labs.