Air Force downplays drone malware infection

The U.S. Air Force is downplaying the impact of a virus that reportedly compromised systems used to control its unmanned drones, calling the attack nothing more than a “nuisance.”

The malware, which was detected on “standalone” systems at Nevada's Creech Air Force Base, has not affected the U.S. military's remotely piloted aircraft operations, the Air Force said Wednesday in its first official statement about the matter, initially reported by Wired late last week.

"It's standard policy not to discuss the operational status of our forces,” Col. Kathleen Cook, spokeswoman for Air Force Space Command, said in a statement. “However, we felt it important to declassify portions of the information associated with this event to ensure the public understands that the detected and quarantined virus posed no threat to our operational mission and that control of our remotely piloted aircraft was never in question.”