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Planes Can Be Hacked Via Inflight Wi-fi, Says Researcher

Posted by samzenpus on from the protect-ya-neck dept.

wired_parrot writes In a presentation to be shown Thursday at the Black Hat conference, cybersecurity consultant Ruben Santamarta is expected to outline how planes can be hacked via inflight wi-fi. Representatives of in-flight communication systems confirmed his findings but downplayed the risks, noting that physical access to the hardware would still be needed and only the communication system would be affected.

5 of 151 comments (clear)

  1. So, which is it? by timrod · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Is it as Ruben Santamarta says, that the plane's satellite communications system can be hacked into via the plane's wifi? Or is it as the manufacturers say, and the hacker would have to have physical access to the hardware and couldn't do much of anything anyway? There's two very different points of view here and I'm not sure how they're supposed to meet up.

    1. Re:So, which is it? by Jane+Q.+Public · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Is it as Ruben Santamarta says, that the plane's satellite communications system can be hacked into via the plane's wifi? Or is it as the manufacturers say, and the hacker would have to have physical access to the hardware and couldn't do much of anything anyway? There's two very different points of view here and I'm not sure how they're supposed to meet up.

      Any airplane manufacturer that is stupid enough to link their passenger wi-fi system to ANYTHING else, deserves to get a few planes stuffed into the ground. Same with auto companies. If true, the whole thing is about as lamebrained as it gets.

    2. Re:So, which is it? by geekoid · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Yes, hundreds of people 'deserve' to die. It certainly not the person doing the attacks fault at all.
      Idiot.

      --
      The Kruger Dunning explains most post on /. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning%E2%80%93Kruger_effect
  2. No they cant. by Lumpy · · Score: 5, Insightful

    They did not get into the aircraft avionics.

    They got into the satellite communications for the Infotainment system.

    NONE of the systems like that have any interconnection to avionics or telemetry.

    --
    Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
  3. there IS a connection by dltaylor · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I used to work for one of the In-Flight Entertainment (IFE) vendors. Although their "architect" was clueless about security, some of us doing the work managed to build some into the system. With WiFi, it was harder, but, before I left, we had, at least, set up some VPNs to isolate the system control links from the cabin crew- and customer-access features (don't know if that persisted). The entire IFE did rely on hard-coded passwords, though.

    There IS a connection between the IFE and aircraft systems. It is used to feed aircraft position and speed data, plus some useful state, such as wheels up/down (there are features that only enabled while in "cruise", but not during takeoff and landing, for example). The aircraft systems designers, however, seemed to have a clue about security, however, as we were only allowed a network connection to a slave server with no apparent upstream links.