U.S. Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist Seaman Cheng S. Yang [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons
McClathcy News: US Navy collisions stoke cyber threat concerns
WASHINGTON: The Pentagon won’t yet say how the USS John S. McCain was rammed by an oil tanker near Singapore, but red flags are flying as the Navy’s decades-old reliance on electronic guidance systems increasing looks like another target of cyberattack.
The incident – the fourth involving a Seventh Fleet warship this year – occurred near the Strait of Malacca, a crowded 1.7-mile-wide waterway that connects the Indian Ocean and the South China Sea and accounts for roughly 25 percent of global shipping.
“When you are going through the Strait of Malacca, you can’t tell me that a Navy destroyer doesn’t have a full navigation team going with full lookouts on every wing and extra people on radar,” said Jeff Stutzman, chief intelligence officer at Wapack Labs, a New Boston, New Hampshire, cyber intelligence service.
Read more ....
WNU Editor: Two readers have emailed me telling me that this is a possibility (a deliberate cyber attack). I am sceptical .... I would think there would be numerous safeguards to prevent such an attack. But there have been a number of collisions this year .... all in Asia .... and people are asking questions. On a side note .... speculation on cyber and electronic weapons targeting US naval vessels have been around for a long time .... Did A Russian Fighter Jet Buzz A U.S. Destroyer And Successfully Disabled Its Radar And Defense Systems? (November 15, 2014).
More News On Reports that The USS John MacCain and The USS Fitzgerald May Have Experienced Cyber Attacks Before Their Collisions
Were they hacked? US Navy to investigate whether BOTH warships that crashed into much larger merchant vessels with deadly results were the victims of a cyber attack -- Daily Mail
Speculation That Hacking May Have Caused USS John S. McCain's Collision -- International Business Times
U.S. Navy considers possibility of cyber attack after another ship collision -- CSO
5 burning questions on the collision of USS John S. McCain in waters near Singapore -- Straits Times
Navy ships keep getting into accidents. Time to find out why. -- Washington Post
Update: Navy says cyber sabotage played 'no role' in USS John S. McCain incident (FOX News).
7 comments:
For anyone keeping score, this is now the fourth AIGIS equipped ship the be damaged this year. All in Asian waters. The two DDG's - Fitzgerald and McCain - had the advanced BMD upgrade.
(the two damaged CG's - Antietam and Lake Champlain - are not equipped with the
advanced BMD system)
http://www.cnn.com/2017/08/21/politics/navy-ships-accidents/index.html
I believe I read an article last year that the US military was looking into new timing systems using radio waves instead of being dependent on GPS systems in case of hacking/disruption. I don't recall the article though.
The John McCain just came back from South China Sea freedom of the seas patrol. Maybe PRC wants to send a signal? Can this be done from a submarine I wonder?
I can see why the US Navy may want to downplay talk of a cyber attack. Hell, they may even be aware that it was a cyber attack and who may have done it.
They'll likely not admit it though.
If it turns out it was the cause, then it represents a new phase of cyberwarfare.
It's also as much a deliberate act of war as you can get, that has resulted in the deaths of navy personnel. All the more reason why the navy will be very hush-hush about this.
It has been suggested to me that the navy is reticent to claim such causes since we engage in them ourselves and we did not want such news made public
For what it's worth:
http://splash247.com/steering-casualty-cited-us-navy-collision-off-singapore/
A March 2017 GAO Report noted that:
- USN ships are understaffed for the normal workload,
- many USN Crew are untrained for tasks and duties,
- USN ships are overdeployed,
- the USN is in a recruiting/retention shortage/crisis
http://www.gao.gov/assets/690/684771.pdf
Post a Comment