Video Feeds from Israeli UAVs Intercepted by Western Intel Agencies

Further confirmation of the relative ease with which video feeds from UAVs can be intercepted has been provided by the The Intercept website. Using classified documents from the British signals intelligence agency GCHQ provided by NSA whistleblower Edward Snowdon, the website revealed that GCHQ analysts were able to view EO/IR imagery and some movement data from Israeli Heron, Hermes, Searcher and Aerostar UAVs operating over Israel and the occupied territories. However, there was no indication that the command and control datalinks of these UAVs had also been captured.

The intercepts were conducted from the British listening post on the Troodos Mountains in Cyprus, and from the NSA site at Menwith Hill in the UK. They were of imagery relayed by satellite and apparently consisted mainly of snapshots. No line-of-sight communications from the UAVs to ground stations were mentioned in the leaked documents, which date from 1998 to 2012. Surprisingly, some of the video feeds were unencrypted, and some more were susceptible to decryption by open-source software, according to analysis of the documents by The Intercept. However, the documents show that considerable computing power was required to decrypt some of the video feeds, with variable results in terms of image quality. The feeds included airframe-monitoring video, from cameras mounted on the tails of the UAVs.

GCHQ also intercepted targeting pod video from an Israeli air force F-16, and from an Ababil III UAV manufactured by Iran and operated by Syria. Hezbollah has also operated UAVs supplied by Iran, but one GCHQ analyst in 2009 noted that “no tip-off exists” for this activity. In another document, a GCHQ analyst noted that Heron TPs were carrying weapons. As noted previously by AIN and elsewhere, Israel has never officially acknowledged that its UAVs are weaponized.

According to Dr. Tamir Libel, an academic who has studied Israel’s UAV history and is now affiliated with the Barcelona Institute of International Studies (BIET), the new revelations “have severe implications in regard to Israeli-U.S.-British relations.” He told AIN that they also raised questions about cyber security in the IDF, and whether lessons had been learned from previous breaches. In 1997, Hezbollah ambushed and killed 12 Israeli commandos after discerning their movements by intercepting the feed from Israeli UAVs that were supporting a raid. After that, the IDF and Israeli UAV companies reportedly invested significantly in communications encryption.