Spy cameras on UK Royal Navy drones secretly sent data to China

[BHAN85]

Spy cameras on Navy drones secretly sent data to China
Special forces boats set for use in planned Gulf missions were fitted with Chinese-made components

Published 09 August 2026 9:16pm BST

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2026/08/09/spy-cameras-on-navy-drones-secretly-sent-data-to-china/

 

[BHAN85]

dont they know how to use wireshark before going production mode?

 

[Hamartia Antidote]

dont they know how to use wireshark before going production mode?

Maybe they did initially.

Don't worry all those Chinese 4G/5G telecommunications components are perfectly fine...especially the ones that can have firmware updates..

The power cord for my Tesla had an update a few days ago.
Yes, you read that correctly...the power cord that plugs into a regular wall outlet auto-updated.

Tesla Rolls Out Rare Software Update to Mobile Connectors - Not a Tesla App

In an unexpected hardware drop, Tesla has started pushing a firmware update for its portable Mobile Connector charging units

www.notateslaapp.com

Tesla Rolls Out Rare Software Update to Mobile Connectors

Never heard of a Tesla mobile connector getting a software update but that's interesting nonetheless

Unlike the vehicle itself or Tesla’s other residential charging hardware, the Mobile Connector lacks built-in cellular or Wi-Fi antennas. Instead, the vehicle acts as the middleman. Your Tesla downloads the firmware update over its own internet connection when plugged in using the Mobile Connector, holds the file, and then transfers the package directly to the device.

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now read it again carefully about how that worked. The cord has no way of updating by itself. BUT it has some backdoors exposed that allows a Tesla car to update it the next time the cord is plugged into the car. So the car downloads the power cord update, holds onto that update until somebody one day finally plugs the power cord into the car, the car then notices the cord's brains are out of date so then transfers the update to it. The user is completely oblivious as to what happened....hmmm.

 

[BHAN85]

Maybe they did initially.

Don't worry all those Chinese 4G/5G telecommunications components are perfectly fine...especially the ones that can have firmware updates..

The power cord for my Tesla had an update a few days ago.
Yes, you read that correctly...the power cord that plugs into a regular wall outlet auto-updated.

Tesla Rolls Out Rare Software Update to Mobile Connectors - Not a Tesla App

In an unexpected hardware drop, Tesla has started pushing a firmware update for its portable Mobile Connector charging units

www.notateslaapp.com

Tesla Rolls Out Rare Software Update to Mobile Connectors

---

---

now read it again carefully about how that worked. The cord has no way of updating by itself. BUT it has some backdoors exposed that allows a Tesla car to update it the next time the cord is plugged into the car. So the car downloads the power cord update, holds onto that update until somebody one day finally plugs the power cord into the car, the car then notices the cord's brains are out of date so then transfers the update to it. The user is completely oblivious as to what happened....hmmm.

Maybe in a complex system, like 5G core networks, it's impossible to be monitoring everything all the time. It's the reason because huawei was forbidden for 5g core networks in several western countries.

But in this drone it would be easy avoid the leak, the vulnerability is in the camera, it's not in the communication device, all they have to do it's forbid all outbound network traffic except to the drone manufacturer servers. But they trusted too much.

BTW the firmware can be analyzed and these cameras often use linux distributions for embedded devices, easy to see what they do. It's the minimum to expect in a military device.

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github.com

Besides reading the news it doesnt seem a hacking attempt from Chinese, it seems just the normal function of the camera, sending pings to camera manufacturer server.

And yes like in the example you said, the vulnerability (aka firmware update function) can be waiting to plug the device to any interface capable of exchange data.