Yet hackers allegedly hijacked a German Patriot anti-aircraft missile “defense system” located on the Syrian-Turkish border, according to the German publication Behoerden Spiegel.
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It was unclear who or what sent the commands, and the report did not elaborate on what effect this had on the missiles.
Germany’s Ministry of Defence poured cold water on the claims, saying such an attack was “extremely unlikely” and there was “no evidence” to suggest it happened. The Netherlands and Germany had each sent two Patriot missile batteries in December 2012 after North Atlantic Treaty Organisation had granted the request of Turkey to protect the country’s airspace from a potential missile strike originating from Syria.
While Bundeswehr disputed that the US-made Patriot system stationed in Turkey has beencompromised, the report says the Patriot received some orders from unknown sources.
The magazine suggests that there are two weak spots that could have been compromised in the missile system: the first is a chip controlling the weapon’s guidance and the second is a component responsible for exchanging real-time information between the launcher and the control system. One of the reasons why this particular missile battery was present in Turkey was to provide protection to the country against the on-going Syrian military conflict. According to Die Welt, the battery consists of six launchers and two radars.
Yet security researcher Billy Rios asked if an upgrade to the system could have connected it to the Internet and created a “smart weapon, where it can transmit data to and from other places”.
Weapons systems are usually very hard to hack – but not impossible.
He cites Russian Federation, China, the United States, the UK, Israel and potentially Iran as the only nations with the capacities to infiltrate a stand-alone missile battery, but adds that the Patriot technology is old and needs to be updated.
The hackers could manage to break in the system either by taking control of the operating system or by stealing data from it. Taking control of the battery will remotely commandeer the sytem to launch attacks.
Caroline Baylon, cybersecurity research associate at Chatham House, says the results of such a hack could be catastrophic. “Missile systems have the same vulnerabilities that exist in critical infrastructure”.
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The most famous example of such a cyber attack was the Stuxnet worm, which disabled centrifuges in Iranian nuclear power plants and was blamed by Tehran on the USA and Israel.
