Per The Register. A significant security lapse within the U.S. Air Force in the early 2000s, involving the widespread use of personal USB drives for classified mission data, ultimately led to a major malware breach in 2008.
Air Force personnel, unaware of the risks, used personal USB drives purchased from local vendors in areas like Afghanistan to transfer mission-critical data between unclassified and classified systems. This practice, akin to a 'sneakernet,' created a vulnerability that adversaries exploited by distributing infected USB drives. The lack of security awareness among pilots and staff meant that malware could easily be introduced into sensitive networks. This culminated in a significant breach in 2008 when an infected USB drive compromised a laptop connected to U.S. Central Command, introducing a worm dubbed Agent.BTZ. The malware was capable of exfiltrating data and communicating with remote servers, reportedly attributed to Russian groups. It took the Department of Defense 14 months to eradicate the threat, prompting a temporary ban on USB drives and a shift towards more secure data transfer methods.
Source: The Register
