French military aircraft were unable to fly for a few days last month after their systems were knocked out by the “Conficker” virus – which World+Dog was warned about back in October.They didn’t start to apply patches until 16th Jan.

This lack-of-airforce was not noticed by the Free World. Or the Germans.

At one point French naval staff were ordered not to even turn on their computers.

Jérome Erulin, a French navy spokesweasel told Ouest France: “It affected exchanges of information but no information was lost. It was a security problem we had already simulated. We cut the communication links that could have transmitted the virus and 99 per cent of the network is safe.”Yeah riiiight, sunshine. There will be a few techs losing their jobs over this snafu.

A rogue USB key and idiocy are being blamed, but you should at least lock down the ability for users to play with the first as much as possible. Security101. The second one you can’t get rid of….especially if he is an unelected one-eyed Scot.

The French navy admitted that during the time it took to clear up the mess it had to return to more traditional forms of communication: telephone, fax, post and large white flags.

“The Sicmar Network, on which the most sensitive documents and communications are transmitted was not touched”, it said. “The computer virus problem had no effect on the availability of our forces.” Apart from the lack of air cover. The virus attacked the non-secured internal French navy network called Intramar and was detected on 21 January.

According to Liberation newspaper (referred to in France as Libé), two days later the chiefs of staff decided to isolate Intramar from the military’s other systems, but some computers at the Villacoublay air base and in the 8th Transmissions Regiment were infected. Liberation reported that on the 15 and 16 January the Navy’s Rafale aircraft were “nailed to the ground” because they were unable to “download their flight plans”. The aircraft were eventually activated by “another system”. Why did it take an extra 5 days to find the cause?

The French press also reported that the only consolation for the French Navy was that it was not the only ones to have fallen victim to the virus. It said that a report in the military review Defense Tech revealed that in early Jan 2009 the MoD had been attacked by a hybrid of the same virus and it had infected the computer systems of more than 24 RAF bases and 75 per cent of the Royal Navy fleet including the aircraft carrier Ark Royal.

Job-wise…it doesn’t seem to be a good time to be a military geek.

(Note: some phrases nicked from the Labourgraph who in turn had nicked them from the French papers)