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Calling Out a GAO Report That Says In-Flight Wi-Fi Lets Hackers Access Avionics

Posted by timothy on from the this-postcard-is-just-an-atom-bomb dept.

An anonymous reader writes A new report from the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) warns that in-flight W-Fi, including wireless entertainment and internet-based cockpit communications, may allow hackers to gain remote access to avionics systems and take over navigation. At the same time, a cyber expert and pilot called the report "deceiving" and said that "To imply that because IP is used for in-flight WiFi and also on the avionics networks means that you can automatically take over the avionics network makes about as much sense as saying you can take over the jet engines because they breathe air like the passengers and there is no air gap between passengers who touch the plane and the engines which are attached to the plane."

2 of 113 comments (clear)

  1. Kind of a dup, but here's a link that explains it by xxxJonBoyxxx · · Score: 5, Informative

    This is a dup story, so here's my dup comment:
    See DefCon 22's avionics preso from 2014 to see what you can and can't do from a hacker's perspective.
    https://www.defcon.org/images/...
    (Since the summary doesn't even often a link or name...this MIGHT even be exactly what the submitter is talking about.)

  2. Re:Kind of a dup, but here's a link that explains by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    Mod parent down. I attended the presentation in person. The presenter is full of shit.

    He based his presentation on flight simulators and utter conjecture. Flight simulators do not model the internal workings of an airplane, but rather the flight characteristics. You can't learn how the internals work without any reference to the internals. The guy made claims about things that just aren't true. He also spread a lot of FUD - "isn't it scary that landing times are on the Internet? What evil things could I do with that?!?" Idiot. Flight plans have to be public, because they're offering travel to the public. If you don't know when the plane lands, you can't schedule a ride from family. If they don't know when it lands, they can't schedule their pickup of you.

    The 'hacker' that presented that tripe doesn't know what he's talking about.