Navy investigating cyber attack signals a bigger issue

The navy is investigating the possibility of hacking as the cause of a recent collision. The ship involved is the McCain operating near Singapore.
The other collision near japan is not under suspicion according to the article.

The Navy says the investigation is only "speculative"
Take that for what it's worth.

"While the idea of a cyberattack causing a collision remains purely speculative, U.S. intelligence officials have warned in recent years that this sort of digital threat could pose a major problem for the Navy’s sprawling armada"

foreignpolicy.com...

Now I posted this story as a sign of a possible future catastrophe. Here is a story from a couple days ago about tesla remotely changing the software in their cars.

www.abovetopsecret.com...

I can see a future not so far away with thousands of self driving cars being commanded to crash together at high speeds.
We seem to be setting ourselves up for major hacking.
How long until our robot overlords decide to flip the switch and put humanity back in the dark ages?

Any thoughts?

a reply to: Bluntone22

I dont' lend much credence to the Navy's claim; I would guess they are deflecting to take eyes off their maintenance problems.

But yea, the self driving cars are a major concern. I can well imagine terror cells hacking them to cause chaos and possibly death. Sad really because the push for self driving cars is unstoppable, because after all, "its for the children", or that's how it will be pushed. They'll push the argument that self-driving cars save lives.

this was another leadership failure. if you were on a DDG you would know the improbability (I hate saying impossible) of a cyber attack on a 'hydraulic' steering system or an analog navigation system overlayed with some electronic components...

maybe the forward and aft lookout watchstanders were cyber attacked too, or the lookout in the pilot house itself able to see 12 Nautical miles out was hacked too, or the binoculars or ship's whistles were hacked along with the collision warnings...

Another case of dead sailors where responsible senior officers simply get reassigned to a new command..
they gotta tell the public something... cyber attacks it is (not)

a reply to: Bluntone22

I can see a future not so far away with thousands of self driving cars being commanded to crash together at high speeds.
We seem to be setting ourselves up for major hacking.
How long until our robot overlords decide to flip the switch and put humanity back in the dark ages?

This is a very valid point. So many people have relinquished large segments of their daily lives to automation it's almost an inevitability...whether by design or just by accident. Self reliance is almost a historical relic anymore.

a reply to: odzeandennz

I kinda thought the same thing. You can't cyber attack a human with binoculars.
But I don't know what kind of control computers have on the steering system of ships today.
Jets are fly by wire. Ships? I have no idea.

I don' think the Navy ships were hacked, I suspect more the "navionics" of the container ships. Someone would have had to hack into the autopilot and maybe the radar. Or if the navionics had automatic collision avoidance, it actually steered the boat into the collision point instead of away from it.

Many commercial radar systems are now wifi enabled, so that you can perform various operations from a smartphone and tablet rather than from the main console.

a reply to: TonyS

Well, they will save lives. So much fear of anything new here. Last time i checked the 'terrorists' were not computer hackers. They have gained some video production value recently ill admit but only when being sponsored by other entities for some good ole fear based propoganda. And speaking of self driving cars being hacked to kill you, for one, nobody here is important enough for that. Secondly, if your car has onstar, lowjack, well it could already be hacked and remotely controlled to an extent.

Dont get me wrong, hacking is a danger. Mostly by people seeking nothing but stolen identities, etc ie for financial value though, on a public note at least. Anything beyond that is likely state or corporation (state) sponsored.

That is why, ffs, more people need to be getting into the IT field. The world needs multiples more of the amount of people in cyber security and dozens other tech services as it already has and those pursuing it as a career. Digital is the future whether anyone likes it or not. Study STEM those in college! Lets get the ball rolling smoother here.

Jmo.

a reply to: Bluntone22

Investigators tend to consider just about every possibility, no matter how remote. It's almost certainly going to come out that the reduced training and maintenance periods Seventh Fleet undergoes, along with the extra time at sea was the ultimate cause of both.

a reply to: lightedhype

I think the key to the whole cyber thing is the word "yet"
The more dependent we are on computers, they more likely terrorists will target them.

a reply to: Zaphod58

Yup, that's why I pointed out the speculative line.
The story just made me think of the "what if" scenario especially after tesla did a remote software change on their cars.

a reply to: Bluntone22

Now if you want a really scary thought, the Joint Program Office, that runs the F-35 program wants to eventually see what I'm calling Windows Updates for the F-35. Their vision is that when the pilot starts the aircraft, he'll get a message that there is an update for a specific system available, with the option to download it remotely.

They've already had to physically split the ALIS aircraft health monitoring system into an unclassified and classified database, because of concerns that the unclassified side could be remotely accessed and give access to the classified side.

I suspect the Aegis system will see something similar eventually.

Um....You have a better chance at getting struck by lightning, while winning the powerball, while making love to a pair of supermodel twins on the back of a unicorn on the moon. Hacking NAVY ships? even if you could....and I do mean IF....do you realize what kind of effort that would take? Just installing malware wouldn't be enough by far.

IF it were possible. A drone? Sure...... but a ship?

a reply to: HassenBinSobar


Very clearly says speculative.
And this post is more about to much reliance on computer automation.
The navy might but a hard nut to crack but do you put the same confidence in an auto company making self driving cars?

we hear stories of hacking by foreign governments all the time.

a reply to: Zaphod58

Just my two cents but frankly this reduced training and maintenance is starting to piss me off!

Tell me if I'm wrong but it seems to me that for whatever reason, the MIC spends far too much money in procuring new stuff with exotic technologies, while neglecting training and maintenance! That is costing lives and its wrong that our active duty personnel are suffering death due to this. It is inexcusable!

Tell me I am right and I'll send a series of letters to my Congress Critters demanding they get this right!

a reply to: TonyS

Not entirely. It comes with increased operations tempo, which puts more strain on line units, resulting in deferred maintenance, which results in more breakage, and less time for training. In the case of Seventh Fleet, they spend over a month more at sea than any other Navy fleet.

They do need to fix things though. A letter certainly wouldn't hurt things.

a reply to: lightedhype

I have nothing against the self-driving cars. It's already the case that I don't visit my favorite cities like San Antonio because there's no place to park and frankly that torques me off. So I can see driving to the nearest Park n'ride on the outskirts of town and hailing an Uber self-driving car to deliver me to the sights and venues I want to enjoy.

But I think its going to be a long time coming for self-driving technologies to be able to safely transit the roads of the Outback of Texas where I live, if for no other reason than the fact that the infrastructure isn't in place to make self-driving technologies work out here. As for the hacking and killing people? It wouldn't be very hard for the terror minded to do the London type side walk driving attacks in the cities. Maybe they can install a kill switch.

As for STEM, yea that's all good but I suspect the US is near maxed out in tapping the domestic talent pool that can handle those fields. We need to do a better job of recruitng, training and retaining foriegn talent to fill the gap.

a reply to: Zaphod58

Consider it done!

a reply to: Bluntone22

Not a matter of whos more difficult to get into, its the plain fact that NAVY ships are localized in that they do not rely on lots of software to operate and navigate. Most of it is analog and mechanical in nature. The software they do use is not updated on the fly like an iphone would be.

Not to mention you would have to really understand the workings of a ships systems to know where to exploit to provide the desired effect.