The French Surrender to Microsoft Virus

Faced with the choice of either giving up or fighting against the Downadup aka Conflicker virus, the French military chose to show the white flag. At least one squadron of the French Navy’s Dassault Rafale aircraft were grounded due to problems with the computer systems at the Airbase.

From CNET here:

Apparently, in the past two weeks, some French fighter planes were grounded because the military had failed to take sufficient action (even though Microsoft had sent advance warning) to prevent the spread of a Windows-transmitted virus that some call Conficker.

The virus “brought down certain arms systems” and grounded the Navy’s Dassault Rafale aircraft.

Clearly, I am not in a position to comment as to whether the French military responded appropriately to the Microsoft warning, though Intelligence Online insists that the incident “raises serious questions about the security of French military networks and their capacity to fight off computer attacks.”

Of course the aircraft themselves do not use Microsoft operating systems, so any virus outbreak must have affected the systems that the Squandron office used to schedule flights, maintenance rotations, etc.  So keeping the planes grounded for safety reasons made a little bit of sense.

However, it also shows that the Defence networks were not well protected and furthermore, there were no alternative plans in place to continue flight operations using a paper-based backup system.  Had this been a real wartime situation, they may be forced to operate without a computer system.

Two weeks ago, I found myself travelling on US Airways during a massive computer outage they had due to a cable cut at a major datacenter.  After only one hour delay, US Airways had all planes flying, luggage being routed and passengers changing flights using a backup system.  No one knew where they were supposed to sit on airplanes, but travellers hardly felt the inconvenience.