Conficker virus grounds French fighter planes

A virus making the rounds on Windows machines apparently left three French fighter jets unable to load their computers' flight plans, according to news reports from Europe.

According to a report in the Daily Telegraph, translating earlier coverage from Ouest France, the Conficker bug infected French military computers so severely that in mid-January that navy's Rafale aircraft were grounded. The aircraft were apparently eventually fed their data through a secondary system. Meanwhile, the Navy -- which said through a spokesperson that it's thought the non-secured internal network was infected accidentally, via a thumb drive -- relied on fax, phone and snail mail to conduct many tasks.

The vulnerability Conficker exploits is in Windows Server. It was patched in an out-of-band fix from Microsoft back in October. The French Navy detected the infection on January 21 and began patching procedures, at one point instructing staff not to start their computers at all.