A number of military organisations around the world have started using Windows 2000 as a platform for operational systems within navies, the army, air services and other war branches. But recently there has been quite a bit of consternation concerning the use Windows in UK naval vessels as well as French fighter planes. I’m the first to admit that Windows 2000 was probably one of the best Windows ever, but that still doesn’t excuse the idiocy of using a platform that encourages 95% of the worlds spam and malicious activity, for critical systems. The fact that Microsoft refuses to indemnify anyone using Windows for such a purpose is further proof that Windows is not suited to this area. Unix and specifically real-time Unix/Linux platforms like QNX have been the choice in the past and continue to deliver sterling service under very tough conditions. Windows however appears to have some issues.
One of the most recent issues surrounding use of Windows within military networks was the rapid infection of the US Defence Departments networks ( NIPRNET and SIPRNET ) in November last year. A virus, Agent.btz/Silly.FDC spread itself rapidly through thumb drives and other similar devices, to the point where use of all removable media was suspended, to try and combat the problem ( what happened to the AV packages on all these machines? ). Considering that this virus is about 4 years old, you have to wonder what platform would allow this sort of thing. Or is it just poor system administration with lack of updates ( yes the 100’s of MBs of updates ) being the main culprit?
A second and more worrying issue was the failure of onboard computing systems on French fighter planes at the beginning of this month. The virus was Conficker this time and had updates available from Microsoft in October last year, but these had not been applied, leading to a very real failure of systems on these airplanes.
Note that in both instances above, the fact that all these systems were running on the Windows platform, was not mentioned. I think there are a number of sectors to blame here:
- Military organisations for using an unfit platform in both networks and vehicle control systems
- Military Windows administrators for not keeping their systems updated
- Microsoft for continuing to provide a platform that encourages malicious activity
- Commercial platforms intrinsically don’t lend themselves to code inspection
There are those that say that non-Windows platform systems are less susceptible to malicious activity and to a certain extent, I think that is true. But I also think that administrators of these systems have an inbred idea of better systems management borne out of complex and non-stop environments that require this attitude to administration. The ( mostly ) simplistic administration methods of Windows-based systems, ease of entry into this environment and lower quality certifications lead to a lax attitude that does not gel well with enterprise or critical environments. [ Bring on the flame, but that is reality ]. There is every reason for making sure that systems are both current in terms of system and virus updates, as well as being as secure as possible. And this is an administrators job. The non-Windows admins are plainly doing a better job as it’s very rare to hear of compromised non-Windows systems due to administrative errors.
Moral of the story: task yourself to a security plan that encompasses all of your systems and platforms, and determine the threat level and risk of each of these. Once complete, apply the appropriate level of time and effort in making sure each and every system in your organisation is secure. The alternative is not pleasant.