Well, This Is Very Troubling

And by that, I mean: AHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!! EVERYTHING IS NOT FINE!!!

David E. Sanger and William J. Broad at the New York Times: New U.S. Weapons Systems Are a Hackers' Bonanza, Investigators Find.

Authorized hackers were quickly able to seize control of weapons systems being acquired by the American military in a test of the Pentagon's digital vulnerabilities, according to a new and blistering government review.

The report by the Government Accountability Office concluded that many of the weapons, or the systems that control them, could be neutralized within hours. In many cases, the military teams developing or testing the systems were oblivious to the hacking.

A public version of the study, published on Tuesday, deleted all names and descriptions of which systems were attacked so the report could be published without tipping off American adversaries about the vulnerabilities. Congress is receiving the classified version of the report, which specifies which among the $1.6 trillion in weapons systems that the Pentagon is acquiring from defense contractors were affected.

But even the declassified review painted a terrifying picture of weaknesses in a range of emerging weapons, from new generations of missiles and aircraft to prototypes of new delivery systems for nuclear weapons.

"In one case, the test team took control of the operators' terminals," the report said. "They could see, in real time, what the operators were seeing on their screens and could manipulate the system" — a technique reminiscent of what Russian hackers did to a Ukrainian power grid two years ago.

And again in June of 2017.

Once again, I am reminded of that December 2016 article at the New Yorker by Eric Schlosser: "World War Three, by Mistake." And this paragraph, in particular:

Strict precautions have been taken to thwart a cyberattack on the U.S. nuclear command-and-control system. Every line of nuclear code has been scrutinized for errors and bugs. The system is "air-gapped," meaning that its networks are closed: someone can't just go onto the Internet and tap into a computer at a Minuteman III control center. At least, that's the theory. Russia, China, and North Korea have sophisticated cyber-warfare programs and techniques. General James Cartwright — the former head of the U.S. Strategic Command who recently pleaded guilty to leaking information about Stuxnet — thinks that it's reasonable to believe the system has already been penetrated. "You've either been hacked, and you're not admitting it, or you're being hacked and don't know it," Cartwright said last year.

Everything is not fine.

I don't even know what else to say about this subject.