Virus infecting U.S. drone fleet came from ... malware targeting "Mafia Wars"?

Last week’s news that a computer virus had found its way into the America’s drone fleet was less settling than the fact that the Air Force had no idea where it came from or how to fix it. “We keep wiping it off, and it keeps coming back,” a source told Wired’s Noah Shachtman, who originally broke the story. “We think it’s benign. But we just don’t know.” The good news this week is that they think they’ve found the source and insist that the virus is “more of a nuisance than a threat.” The bad news is it came from a small, possibly banned portable hard drive infected with “malware that is routinely used to steal log-in and password data from people who gamble or play games like Mafia Wars online,” one source told the Associated Press. This whole fiasco is starting to sound like an Onion article.

In fact, The Onion wrote a similar story two years ago! It’s about the Pentagon losing an external hard drive packed containing all of their favorite teevee shows and possibly some confidential military secrets. “The department’s inspector general has vowed a full investigation, and military police have tightened security around other stores of highly sensitive data, including the file cabinet with all the takeout menus,” the article jokes.