Iran Knows the Secrets of America’s Stealth Drone — War is Boring. In response to Saudi Arabia’s biggest-ever war game, in early May Iran’s revolutionary guard hosted its biggest-ever arms bazaar.
Iran publishes RQ-170, drone mock ups and other mil hardware photos online. How Downed U.S. Drone Helps China. Access to a downed U.S. stealth drone would offer plenty of scope for China to reverse engineer key technologies.
Will Iran give it the chance? By Joshua Wiseman for The Diplomat December 24, 2011 Facebook4 Twitter0 Google+16 LinkedIn2. US Confirms Iran Did Not Hack RQ-170 Stealth Drone. A congressional official has confirmed that Iran did not bring down the US Stealth drone with it’s “cyber warfare” skills.
The downing of the drone in fact was due to a malfunction, according to a Foxnews article: “We have looked at this eight ways to Sunday. I can tell you it was a U.S. technical problem. The information (data) was not lining up and it was not the result of Iranian interference or jamming.” This confirms what we stated in December, that Iranian “Cyber Commandos” most likely did not bring down the drone. Information from a 10 week CIA review seems to point to a malfunctioning data stream.
Iran Didn’t Bring Down the RQ-170. A Chinese Cyber Whiz Team Did « Iran to display Israeli, US drones. Iranian newspaper claims Tehran intercepted no less than four Israeli drones which will be showcased in upcoming exhibition An Iranian exhibition will showcase four Israeli drones, the Tehran Times reported on Wednesday.
According to the report, The exhibition will also display three American drones and will be open to local press and foreign ambassadors. The newspaper quoted a source saying that Iran seized the Israeli jets after they invaded Iran's aerial space on its eastern border. The US drones were apparently caught when flying over eastern and southern Iran. Related stories: Last January, a senior Revolutionary Guard commander announced that his forces intercepted two spy planes in the Persian Gulf. Obama as petulant child in Iran cartoon. Questions surround captured U.S. spy plane. The unmanned spy plane recently captured by Iran appears to be a fake, according to a former Pentagon official.
The former official, who saw video footage of the drone on display in Iran, said not only is it the wrong color, but also the welds along the wing joints do not appear to conform to the stealth design that helps it avoid radar detection. The official requested anonymity because he is not authorized to release information on the drone matter. Iran said it managed to gain control of the RQ-170 Sentinel electronically and guide it down as it flew over its airspace.
US considered missions to destroy RQ-170 Sentinel drone lost in Iran. So valuable is the CIA-operated drone aircraft down in Iran that US officials considered launching an airstrike to destroy the advanced unmanned spy aircraft or sending in a special operations team to blow up or perhaps retrieve the super-secret RQ-170 Sentinel drone.
Skip to next paragraph Subscribe Today to the Monitor Click Here for your FREE 30 DAYS ofThe Christian Science MonitorWeekly Digital Edition. Drone downed in Iran: 'US great game could spark WWIII' File, Political Analysis, Espionage, Terrorism, Security. China, Russia want to inspect downed U.S. drone. TEHRAN - An informed source in the Iranian military has said that Russian and Chinese officials have asked for permission to inspect the U.S. spy drone that was recently downed by the Iranian Armed Forces, Nasimonline.ir reported on Wednesday.
On Sunday, an unidentified Iranian military source said that the Armed Forces of the Islamic Republic had downed an advanced RQ-170 unmanned U.S. spy plane, which had violated the country’s airspace along the eastern border. There are unconfirmed reports that Iran may put the drone on public display. According to the Washington Post, the RQ-170 drone has been used by the CIA for highly sensitive missions into other nations’ airspace, including months of surveillance of the compound in Pakistan in which Al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden was allegedly hiding before he was killed in an attack by Special Operations forces on May 1, 2011. television broadcast images of American identity Hvapyymay regime Iran US RQ-170 spy plane. Officials: Drone downed in Iran on CIA mission. X-47B drones at Edwards AFB -47B drones at Edwards AFB - Second X-47B robo-drone takes to the air (photos) Was Iran's Downing of RQ-170 Related to the Malware Infection at Creech AFB? The Washington Post has reported that Iran's cyber warfare unit took over the controls of a Lockheed Martin RQ-170 Sentinel stealth drone flying over Eastern Iran and landed it with minimal damage.
As of this writing, the U.S. Air Force hasn't yet confirmed or denied the attack. I've left a message with the on-call PA officer at Creech Air Force Base, which is the home of the 432d Wing which flies RQ-170 Sentinels according to this factsheet. Creech Air Force Base, as you may recall, suffered a malware infection of its Reaper and Predator Ground Control Stations last October. After Noah Shachtman broke the story, the Air Force issued a press release claiming that the malware was a simple "credential stealer" and not a "keylogger", which is a distinction without a difference as I pointed out here.
Iran's Cyber Warfare Capabilities Note: The following assessment comes from chapter 16 of the 2nd edition of Inside Cyber Warfare, due out this month: Iran Shoots Down U.S. Drone.