[145718] in cryptography@c2.net mail archive
Re: [IP] Malware kills 154
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Steven Bellovin)
Mon Aug 23 15:44:24 2010
From: Steven Bellovin <smb@cs.columbia.edu>
In-Reply-To: <20100823155030.23657.qmail@joyce.lan>
Date: Mon, 23 Aug 2010 15:35:45 -0400
Cc: cryptography@metzdowd.com, perry@piermont.com
To: John Levine <johnl@iecc.com>
On Aug 23, 2010, at 11:50 30AM, John Levine wrote:
>>> "Authorities investigating the 2008 crash of Spanair flight 5022
>>> have discovered a central computer system used to monitor technical
>>> problems in the aircraft was infected with malware...."
>>>=20
>>> =
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/38790670/ns/technology_and_science-security/?g=
t1=3D43001
>=20
> This was very poorly reported. The malware was on a ground system =
that
> wouldn't have provided realtime warnings of the configuration problem
> that caused the plane to crash anyway.
>=20
And the articles I've seen do not say that the problem caused the crash. =
Rather, they say that a particular, important computer was infected =
with malware; I saw no language (including in the Google translation of =
the original article at =
http://www.elpais.com/articulo/espana/ordenador/Spanair/anotaba/fallos/avi=
ones/tenia/virus/elpepiesp/20100820elpepinac_11/Tes, though the =
translation has some crucial infelicities) that said "because of the =
malware, bad things happened. It may be like the reactor computer with =
a virus during a large blackout -- yes, the computer was infected, but =
that wasn't what caused the problem.
--Steve Bellovin, http://www.cs.columbia.edu/~smb
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