Pentagon plays down security breach with US drones

US army RQ-7B Shadow drones sit in a hangar at an army base near Baquba, north of Baghdad, in 2008. A day after the Pentagon acknowledged that Iraqi militants had used cheap software to intercept US drone feeds, a new report said senior military officials had dismissed that risk in 2004.

A day after the Pentagon acknowledged that Iraqi militants had used cheap software to intercept US drone feeds, a new report on Friday said senior military officials had dismissed that risk in 2004.

On Thursday, military officials sought to play down security concerns after the Wall Street Journal revealed that militants in Iraq and Afghanistan had intercepted the unencrypted downlink between US drones and ground control.

“This is an old issue that’s been addressed,” a defense official, speaking on condition of anonymity, told reporters.

The problem had been taken care of, he said, without elaborating.

But on Friday, the Journal reported that the Pentagon began addressing the issue only this year, despite fears going back to 2004 that Russia or China might intercept and doctor video feeds from the unmanned US aircraft.

The Journal said Friday that members of the Joint Chiefs of Staff discussed the vulnerability posed by the lack of encryption in 2004 and 2005.

Citing two officers with knowledge of the talks, the newspaper said concerns focused on the possibility of interference by national militaries and officials assumed insurgents would not be able to exploit the flaw.

“The main concern was that the video feeds were being intercepted, manipulated and then fed to the commanders in the field,” an officer told the paper.

But senior members of the Joint Staff dismissed those concerns.

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