Iran Claims Data from Downed CIA RQ-170 Decoding Completed

Iran Claims Data from Downed CIA RQ-170 Decoding Completed

This post is also available in: heעברית (Hebrew)

9148342_sIranian officials say they have completed decoding the surveillance data and software extracted from the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) UAS that the United States lost possession of nearly two years ago near the city of Kashmar.

Hossein Salami, the lieutenant commander general of Iran’s Army of the Guardians of the Islamic Revolution, told the country’s Fars news agency that analysts have finally cracked the systems used within the RQ-170 Sentinel obtained in December 2011.

Iranians claimed previously that they brought it down after it entered Iranian airspace without permission. Roughly one week later, CIA officials admitted it was conducting a reconnaissance mission over Afghanistan when it went missing.

iHLS – Israel Homeland Security

All the memories and computer systems of this plane have been decoded and some good news will be announced in the near future not just about the RQ-170 and the optimizations that our forces have done on the reversed engineered model of this drone, but also in area of other important defense achievements,” Fars quoted Salami.

When the Iranian military gained control over the UAS, the unmanned aircraft’s erase sequence allegedly failed to delete sensitive data from it. Since then, Iranian experts have been decoding the captured data, occasionally reporting their progress.

Although the CIA has not admitted the extent of the UAS’ capabilities, experts have said previously that reverse engineering the Sentinel could be a significant event for any nation-state looking to learn more about the technologies utilized by American spy planes.

AUS&R 650x90b