Hackers Breach German Patriot Missile Battery In Turkey

Suspected hackers issued ‘unexplainable commands’  to Germany's Patriot missile defense battery on the Syrian-Turkish border Tuesday.

German monthly Behördenspiegel reported Tuesday that attackers might have found vulnerable spots in the system. One of them may be the Sensor-Shooter-Interoperability (SSI) connecting the missile’s control system and the launcher and the second spot could be a computer chip responsible for guiding the missile.

The hackers could manage to break in the system either by taking control of the operating system or by stealing data from it. Taking control of the battery will remotely commandeer the sytem to launch attacks.

Germany's Defence Department said that it has no evidence of the hacking attack, whereas Former MI5 agent and whistleblower, Annie Machon said that usually the highly secure US weapons could contain backdoors.

Germany will replace its Patriot missiles with the Medium Extended Air Defense System used by the US and Italy as the former are known to have been compromised by patriotic or state actor hackers.

The German army deployed the missiles to guarantee the country’s security with regard to the Syrian crisis. Turkey requested NATO countries for military assistance in 2012.