We heard battleships accident occurs this year. The most recent accident was that it collides with oil tanker near Singapore! (see below BBC news)
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-40995829
I am interested of cyber security technology and believed that Navy already has advanced cyber defense mechanism. The errors which occurred was taken by careless mistake! Headline news was told that a possibility might causes by cyber attack. It is hard to believed in earlier stage that this is a possible factor. But now change my mind, since (VSAT) Satellite Communication Systems rife with security flaws. It was vulnerable to Remote Hacks path! This technical limitation not the news today. It was found on 2014. The subject matter expert found that just sending a simple SMS or specially crafted message from one ship to another ship would be successful for some of the SATCOM systems.
Remark: Rumors told that a weakness happen on VSAT Firmware.
A design weakness was found on the system based on Information security design best practice (see below information for reference)
Identification – identify trusted source (malicious SMS or crafted message)
Authentication – permit or denied request (an authentication mechanism system authorize the electronic computing process)
Silence (behalf of penalty) of the lambs
We all known the discipline of Military is serious. Any change management requires inform the duty officer (captain). For instance, management team define the fairway. It requires authorize person acknowledgment before modifications. If the specify accident not a low level mistake (absence duty or incorrect operation procedure). It looks that the hardware manufacturer might bare the responsibilities. However do the firmware upgrade not a difficult way in IT world because Microsoft do the software patching weekly!
My comments
Since the overall political atmosphere looks unstable in APAC countries. The United States Seventh Fleet responsible to equality of power and peaceful of this area (after finished the battle of World War II). However a technical limitation (hiccup) shown to the world in military force. Even though you have anti-defense to offence missile send by South Korea. But any military plan it is a dangerous game indeed.
