We have long known our command posts are missile magnets because of all the ways they emit signals that an enemy can detect and attack. Every troop with a modern phone is a missile magnet now.
Targeting is easier with a complacent and cooperative enemy:
As the general paced the briefing room, he displayed a piece of lethal technology and detailed the death and chaos it has caused in Ukraine.
Almost 90 Russian soldiers were slain in a single attack in 2022, explained Army Maj. Gen. Curtis Taylor, when Ukrainian forces dropped U.S.-provided rockets on buildings pulsing with electronic signals.
Here in the Mojave Desert, where Taylor oversees simulated war designed to prepare U.S. troops for the real thing, the same behavior abounds, he warned.
Taylor held up his cellphone. “This device,” he said, “is going to get our soldiers killed.”
TDR has been worried about our forces being self-targeting for a long time. Although my initial worry was our big carriers that would have the kill chain considerably shortened by compromised electronics:
Could the Chinese slip something into our carrier systems that would function as a homing beacon for a missile attack, eliminating the need to deploy surveillance and targeting systems for tracking our carriers at sea? What if a compromised chip could make a silent-running carrier emit in every frequency by just turning equipment on? The Chinese would only need to know the general area of a carrier and shoot blind, counting on the carrier itself to bring the missiles home. Shoot, just infect every iPod sold to make sure sailors take them on board a carrier and put emitters in them.
iPods! LOL. Simpler days, eh?
Now, the risk is to more than high-value naval targets. The threat extends to any individual soldier using phones working as they are intended being exploited by enemy forces without any modified hardware or remotely installed malware.
UPDATE: More:
As military units increasingly depend on wireless communications in the combat zone, the Ukraine War is providing examples of how patterns of cell phone use can be mapped and provide targets for guided missile attacks.
NOTE: TDR Winter War of 2022 coverage continues here.
