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An unidentified hacker attempted to sell alleged US military documents containing information on combat drones last month, according to a cybersecurity research company, after being stolen from an officer's computer of the air force. the MQ-9 Reaper drone, a remotely operated air vehicle used by the Pentagon and other parts of the government to conduct offensive strikes or reconnaissance and surveillance operations.
The discovery of the attempted sale of stolen documents comes as US military secrets may be insufficiently protected against hackers. The military authorities said last month that the Inspector General of the Defense Department was investigating a major security breach after Chinese hackers stole data related to the submarine warfare, including plans for build a supersonic antisemitic missile. The documents of the Reaper drone were affiliated with a foreign country, or that he intentionally sought to obtain military documents,
Andrei Barysevich,
a senior threat investigator at Recorded Future, the US-based cybersecurity company that spotted the attempted sale. Instead, the hacker has scanned much of the Internet for poorly configured Netgear routers and exploited a known two-year vulnerability, involving default login credentials, to steal compromised machine files.
and the Department of Homeland Security on the activities of the hacker. A DHS spokesman said the agency was reviewing the information provided by Recorded Future, but has postponed further comments to the Air Force. Air Force and DSS did not respond to requests for comments
Presenting themselves as a potential buyer, researchers at the e-business contacted the vendor and, during weeks of discussions, sent out copies of them. screen allegedly stolen documents. . These documents included the name of an Air Force captain stationed at Creech Air Force Base in Nevada and whose pirate would have obtained the stolen drone files.
The hacker was probably unaware of the value of the documents he had obtained because he was trying to sell them for as little as $ 150, said Barysevich. He added that the hacker was communicating in imperfect English but that he sometimes slipped into Spanish, which, along with other indicators, led some researchers to think that it could be based in America. South
Hackers often attempt to buy and sell stolen data anonymously. on the black web, but these transactions typically involve information that can be monetized into fraud schemes, such as passwords, user names, or financial documents. But selling military documents on an open forum is incredibly rare, Barysevich said.
"I have been personally researching the dark web for 15 years, and have never seen anything like it," he said in an interview. 19659004] Documents shared by the hacker were not marked as classified but could be used by an opponent to assess the potential capabilities and weaknesses of the Reaper drone, Recorded Future said. Some of the files included a warning that the material included technical data that was subject to export control.
Barysevich stated that the hacker's methods were not particularly sophisticated and that his apparent success should raise concerns about more advanced hacking groups. Theft of the US Army
The hacker also announced the sale of another installment of military documents that included a manual of use of tanks and training materials on how to operate. to mitigate improvised explosive devices. It was not clear how the hacker obtained these documents, but they were probably taken from the Pentagon or an American military official, Recorded Future said.
Write to Dustin Volz at [email protected]
