Pentagon hit by ‘critical compromise’ of US Air Force communications

Re:Pentagon hit by ‘critical compromise’ of US Air Force com... by fidotron on Saturday July 29, 2023 @02:05PM (#36922858)

Radio has a lot more to it than just keys. For example, frequency hopping is a big thing, and which frequencies it jumps between, when, and why (i.e. as some sort of anti jamming strategy) are all important details which could be established by inspecting the equipment.

That said, the mention of the Motorola programming software does make this sound more like a base security/policing problem than actual operational infrastructure.

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Re:Pentagon hit by ‘critical compromise’ of US Air Force com... by Dah00n on Saturday July 29, 2023 @03:15PM (#36923488)

Surely frequency hopping patterns is tied to the key and not hard coded? That would be pretty stupid.. but what do I know.

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Re:Pentagon hit by ‘critical compromise’ of US Air Force com... by DropInIn on Saturday July 29, 2023 @04:58PM (#36924495)

Wouldnt you just have another key as a seed for the hopping?

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Re:Pentagon hit by ‘critical compromise’ of US Air Force com... by sockaddr on Saturday July 29, 2023 @03:47PM (#36923851)

I don’t understand how this is security. Wouldn’t an adversary just listen on all channels and pick up the rest of the communication on the newly detected frequency?

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Re:Pentagon hit by ‘critical compromise’ of US Air Force com... by aethros on Saturday July 29, 2023 @04:21PM (#36924157)

Frequency hopping is actually not considered a secure communication method in military circles, nor is it designed to be. Frequency hopping is designed to provide robust communication during electronic warfare scenarios (jamming).

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