The recent revelation that a computer virus had infected the digital cockpits of Predator and Reaper drones at Creech Air Force Base in Nevada raises the question of whether America's pre-eminent tool in the war on terror could become a victim of cyber-espionage.
The fact of the matter, says Noah Shachtman, who broke the story for Wired last Friday, is that "the more we rely on computers and robots to wage our wars, the more vulnerable we become to viruses and worms and trojans."
However, in speaking with Trend Lines, Shachtman stressed how little is actually known about the current virus infecting the U.S. military's Host-Based Security System and cautioned against jumping too quickly to conclusions.