The drone control systems used to operate U.S. military drones appear to have made the switch to Linux, says Mikko Hypponen, chief research officer at F-Secure, in a tweet.

Referring to the discovery of Windows USB worms last year, Hypponen alluded to the possibility that it influenced the transition from Windows to the Linux operating system. As reported on InformationWeek, an unclassified picture of a presentation detailing the use of Linux in an upgrade of the drone control systems was cited as evidence.

To recount what happened, the ground control systems at an Air Force base in Nevada were found to have been infected with malware last September. Though the intrusion was treated seriously, the Air Force says the malware was a mere credential stealer that is more of a nuisance than an "operational threat."

And though it wasn't explicitly mentioned, the fact that it was found on a standalone mission support network makes the most probable point of infection a USB flash drive. Assuming that my hypothesis is correct, an upgrade to Linux would effectively prevent such an incident from happening again.

I have some thoughts about switching to Linux for security reasons that you can read in today's commentary.

For more:
- check out this article at InformationWeek
- check out this article at The Register

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