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FAA Denies Vulnerabilities In New Air Traffic Control System
bingbong writes "The FAA's NextGen Air Traffic Control (ATC) modernization plan is at risk of serious security breaches, according to Brad Haines (aka RenderMan). Haines outlined his concerns during a presentation (PDF) he gave at the recent DefCon 20 hacker conference in Las Vegas, explaining that ADS-B signals are unauthenticated and unencrypted, and 'spoofing' (video) or inserting a fake aircraft into the ADS-B system is easy. The FAA isn't worried because the system has been certified and accredited."
Are there ways to handle this? Yes, old school "strips," and greater separation manually... But what if the controllers can't find the real targets? In VFR conditions everyone must see and avoid anyway, and IFR flights would probably have to revert to VFR if in VMC. But what of a bunch of IFR flights in actual IMC? TCAS you say? What if said bad guy could spoof TCAS as well? TCAS would likely handle the huge amount of targets even worse than the TRACON software (might even crash... in the software sense). Add a power stuck mic to jam up all the COMM frequencies and you cause a lot of trouble indeed. Pilots must follow a discreet set up rules in this case, but they are not perfect in that they cannot help a jetliner that has had a headwind the whole way, and is low on fuel with now opportunities to make it to a VMC field.
I'm just saying I believe with enough resources it could be done. Create a ton of fake targets near a busy airport in bad weather. Jam all COM frequencies. Jam GPS, Jam the ILS/MLS. Jam the VOR signals, and any remaining NDBs. It may not lead to loss of life if the bad weather was not too far widespread (such that IFR flights could proceed to VMC and land VFR), but either way it would cause a lot of monetary damage, and a lot of terror in the flying public...
Encryption would be a very good thing for ADS-B. As we update the system from old school mode C, we might as well be countering these things.
And if you did all that, it would be damn close to, if not actually (GPS is military), an act of war. Want to see just how fast the government can respond to an incident? Try the above. I'd give you about 15 minutes before you had military on your ass. They have smart missiles that can automatically target GPS and radar jammers, if they get desperate enough to get rid of your interference. And as you note, there's already procedures for going "old-school" and not relying on radar or TCAS or ILS. Even in "hard" IMC you should be able to use your instruments to stay in the air and away from other planes, and you should have enough fuel (you did your fuel calculation correctly, right?) to circle around a bit waiting for the situation to be resolved.
I have developed a truly marvelous proof of this comment, which this signature is too narrow to contain.
Greetings,
As the guy on stage giving the presentation, I feel the need to comment. I see Nick was already here ahead of me covering most of the points, but I figured I'd chime in.
The FlightGear Demo video was, as Nick mentioned, a way to show that it was possible to put ADS-B data into the air with equipment available to any hobbiest. We used a flight sim and a dummy load because at no time would we ever put real data into the air without proper permissions and safety precautions. As much as I want to know what would happen, I have no desire to see anything bad happen to any aircraft or members of the flying public. It was a proof of concept to show the theory and a potential tool to test these theories.
I fully admit I dont know the system inside and out. I dont see how someone needs to be in order to spot things that are just not right.
In all the comments, much was said, but little evidence was offered. If you have evidence that you can share publically, please do so. Contact me at renderlab.net and prove me wrong. I would love to do a presentation where I answer all of my questions to my complete satisfaction.
A few points were raised repeatedly that I'd like to address:
"But multilateration takes care of that". Really. Please show me the report. What was the methodology for establishing that as adaquate?
"But pilots and controllers are smart people" They are also human and make mistakes. Training and preperation are going to be key to solving this
"Publicity seeking" Yes, I am seeking publicity, to get the aviation authorities to open up about these issues and provide some transparancy into the
"Try to hack it, nothing will happen". I want to, with permission of course. This is why I'm asking anyone who has access to aircraft, ATC operations gear, manuals, avionics, etc. To come forth and let us test our theories publically. If everything is secure and safe, then the worst thing that happens is I look a bit foolish, but we all can fly home feeling a bit safer.
Yes, there may have been errors in the slides. I admit so right at the beginning. The aviation industry is more acronym happy than the computer industry. Some of the numbers are from official documents and older versions of SOP's or summaries or any number of sources. Until I have the controllers procedures and standards manual in my hand, I only have publically available documents to go from, which may contain variations or errors. I'm human.
Lastly many comments questioned my motives and the logic of going public. I set out to prove to myself that ADS-B and NextGen were safe. I failed in that. I do not think it is as secure and safe as has been made out to be. I kept trying to prove to myself it was safe but every avenue turned up more evidence to the contrary. I exhausted all the documents and resources I could find and so wanted to turn to the hacker community that I know and love and get thier help in trying to prove my theories wrong. These theories have been around longer than I and are most certain to have been discussed by existing bad guys. As was stated many times, dont shoot the messenger.
TL;DR version: Show me your evidence, prove to me NextGen is safe. Let us test it for ourselves publically.
Where are we going, and why are we in this hand cart?