Hackers Gained Brief Access to a German Missile Battery

It’s never good news when hackers manage to break into government systems, particularly when we’re talking about weapon systems. Unfortunate as it may be, a group of hackers managed to gain access to a German-owned battery of Patriot missiles, albeit for a brief moment. The anti-aircraft missile system was stationed on the Syrian border by the German army, and it was supposed to provide protection for Turkey. However, it looks like the system carried out some “unexplained” orders at a certain point, and military experts could not identify when they were issued and what was their result.

A local German magazine speculates that there are two potentially vulnerable spots in the system that could allow hackers to gain the upper hand. One point is represented by a computer chip that was designed to control the weapon’s guidance while the other is the Sensor-Shooter-Interoperability that enables an exchange of information between the launcher itself and the control system.

The American-made Patriot missile system has a long history in the army of the United States, and it was first used during the first Gulf war in 1991. In 2012, Turkish authorities asked its NATO allies to station a Patriot battery at its southern border in order to ensure protection from Syria’s civil war. Not too long ago, in June, Germany stated that it plans to replace the affected Patriot with an air defense system called MEADS, which will hopefully prove much more resilient to hacking.

Thank you Thelocal for providing us with this information.

Image courtesy of RT.