Cyber Vulnerability Sweep Picks Up Royal Navy Drones Sending Data To China
- Reference: 0184921934
- News link: https://tech.slashdot.org/story/26/08/10/2043251/cyber-vulnerability-sweep-picks-up-royal-navy-drones-sending-data-to-china
- Source link:
> [2]According to reports , the talkative components were cameras sourced by Kraken from a third-party supplier. The incident raises questions about supply chains, audits, and cybersecurity in the British armed forces. The spokesperson said: "The first duty of government is national security, and we take the security of our equipment, networks, and data extremely seriously."
[1] https://www.theregister.com/edge-and-iot/2026/08/10/cyber-vulnerability-sweep-picks-up-royal-navy-drones-sending-data-to-china/5285430
[2] https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2026/08/09/spy-cameras-on-navy-drones-secretly-sent-data-to-china/
They Worry Too Much (Score:2)
They need to stop worrying about this. Juts load Deep Seek into your autonomous marine drones and let 'er rip.
Re: (Score:1)
> They need to stop worrying about this. Juts load Deep Seek into your autonomous marine drones and let 'er rip.
DeepSeek is just a bag of weights. It does not phone home.
Bah. (Score:2)
It's just ET trying to phone home. Probably dialed the wrong number.
But why did they have access to the Internet?! (Score:1)
For the love of everything secret; Why did the devices have unfiltered access to the Internet? Shouldn't such devices be on an air-gapped net to begin with? Can't say I'm surprised, though.
Re: (Score:3)
Probably because that is how they are sending data and receiving instructions. This sounds a lot more serious than they are trying to make it. Potentially it means that an enemy (China) could locate your "stealthy" drones and destroy or mislead them.
Does it matter though? (Score:2)
This sort of "phoning home" is common, not just in Chinese products, and no evidence of malicious intent.
And its not like these systems are connected to the internet. ... PLEASE tell me they never connected to the internet!!!
Re: (Score:2)
What's the alternative? Every country builds a continent-wide Military Network to control their drones. Piggy-backing on the civilian network means an enemy attacking that network also damages its own ability to control equipment, such as civilian drones. If the enemy also piggy-backed their military drones onto the civilian network, the result is a killer-bot version of Mutually Assured Destruction.
So no firewalling? And no testing? (Score:2)
Are these people bloody amateurs?
Re: (Score:2)
Pretty much. Apparently they mostly make sonars. Prior to the drone sales, which don't even show up on their web page, they were crowing about a tremendous $13 million in annual sales.
[1]https://www.krakenrobotics.com... [krakenrobotics.com]
[1] https://www.krakenrobotics.com/
Not making things is a strategic vulnerability (Score:1)
Seeing as it puts you at the mercy of the people who make your stuff for you.
History, both recent and not so recent, repeats this lesson again and again.
Camera on a drone, but network? (Score:2)
Why does a camera on a drone even has TCP/IP? Is the vehicle of enterprise size with multiple LANs and hundreds of meters between brain and eyes? Why was it designed to have such overengineering? Or was it just lazy Lego stick together by default manual, no brain participating?
Re: (Score:2)
It's almost certainly the latter. Manufacturer's engineers almost certainly said, "We need a camera capable of X, Y, and Z", and Purchasing found one in a catalog that checked off the boxes for a reasonable (or cheap) price. I'm fairly sure that most Western military robots are put together that way, after all profit is far more important than security.
Raises questions? (Score:2, Interesting)
> The incident raises questions [emphasis mine] about supply chains, audits, and cybersecurity in the British armed forces
Raises questions? No, boys and girls — who slept through the journalist lecturer's implorations against cliches — it does not raise questions. It provides clear and obvious answers ...
Re: (Score:2)
It also provides a much needed laugh.