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Calling Out a GAO Report That Says In-Flight Wi-Fi Lets Hackers Access Avionics
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."
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.)
So, Mr cyber Expert and Pilot, other than saying "nuh uh", do you have anything to suggest there is no chance of this?
We know people can hack air gaps, and if the in-flight wi-fi is at all connected to the electronics in the airplane, there's potentially a lot of attack vectors.
And since there is no actual article, just a summary which says some guy says it can't happen ... I call "bullshit" on the whole story.
Seriously, timothy, a link to a story or this is nothing more than innuendo.
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
Its a brand new concept called "crowd-piloting". The plane goes wherever its passengers feel to go. Very nice!
If there's no air gap between the passengers and the engines on your flights, then I'll take another flight please.
https://www.eff.org/https-everywhere
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.
This story is just a slashvertisement.
The story linked (now linked in the summary) is to a guy making silly ignorant statements about how the GAO is wrong but in such a vague way that I can safely say the guy making these silly comments is wrong. He's arrogantly implying that no aircraft can be hacked because they never make any mistakes and use separate systems and a special software device (thats not a firewall!) that acts as a firewall and doesn't let the two connected networks communicate with each other ...
Also he seems to think that engines 'breath' air, and that the air inside the cabin of an airliner is not at all isolated from the air that goes into the engines.
In short, the summary refers to an article written by someone that claims to be a security expert AND pilot while at the same time making incredibly stupidly inaccurate blanket statements that any useful security officer and certainly any pilot know are too broad and vague to be true or just flat out wrong.
There most certainly IS a firewall between the passengers and the engines on commercial jet aircraft, otherwise the people would die at 30k feet. The fact that he claims to be a pilot and then claims there is no separation between the cabin and exterior is just scary.
And claiming that this other special box ... that acts as a firewall ... but since they gave it another name, its not actually a firewall, so therefor its not possible to be hacked and bypassed.
The reality of it is, what the GAO said IS TRUE. IT IS possible that 'hackers' MIGHT be able to cross the network boundaries if they are physically connected, anyone who claims this is not true knows absolutely nothing about IT security or security on complex systems in general. You work really hard to prevent it, and make certain design decisions to make it hard to cross that gap, but the instant they are connected, you've created the possibility. You can't honestly claim that your network is 100% secure and impeneratble which is what this guy is trying to claim ... about aircraft that he's never had anything to do with, never seen, knows nothing about the internal operation of ... just because he's a pilot doesn't make him suddenly privy to private information internal to Airbus or Boeing.
Once again, I repeat, this is nothing but a shitty slashvertisement. They probably paid timothy to post it to the front page, which explains why it was done in such a hurry the first time and didn't even have a fucking link in it.
Persistent Volume manager for Kubernetes - https://github.com/dwimsey/openshift-pvmanager
It's the same for all the hype over car systems. EVERY SINGLE EXAMPLE they have to install hardware to get access to the data interface.
So yes Terrorists can take over the airplane from their cellphones if the flight crew let them into the maintenance areas and help them install several specialized devices that give them access.
The terrorists need to make appointments so they can make sure that avionics technicians are on hand to help them
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
1. My First Ever Post, please go easy
2. I'm an aircraft engineer with about 12 years in the industry with experience of small and large jets, with both the big orange airline in Europe and the "other" british long haul carrier based at Heathrow.
The WiFi system on board arrives at the plane via a dedicated satellite reciever designed for the specific task of internet connectivity. From there it plugs into the In Flight Entertainment system and the signal is projected via specially designed wifi routers that allow passengers to connect. At no point do the IFE system and the Avionics systems inter-connect physically. Furthermore, the IFE computers are actually stored under each row of seats and drive that row's IFE. Ever kicked that steel box under the end row? Thats the IFE controller for your row.
The avionics systems are connected using an ARINC 429 system - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ARINC_429. This is similar to a home network, but extremely specialised and focused on the job at hand. You cannot hack the IFE system and "get" into the Avionics. Yes, "Air Gap" hacking has been proven. Thats on computers that are next to eachother, not sat 100+' away through aluminium floor supports and all the other cabin interior. Who ever wrote the subject article has clearly never looked at the technicalities of what he is suggesting.
Thanks
The 777 is unique in its vulnerability to precisely what you mention. The avionics bay access hatch is conveniently next to the toilet but behind a corner. An anonymous youtube poster who claims to be a pilot recorded a video when flying as a passenger to draw attention to this in the wake of MH370 and showed how he during a flight could get in and out of the avionics bay through that hatch with nobody noticing. Most people on board were sleeping and those who saw him, presumably thought he was just going to the toilet. The first thing to address this problem which no other plane has would be to put a fucking lock on that hatch and keep the key in the cockpit. Currently, two people with nefarious intentions can do anything to a 777 that can be done with access to the avionics and the right know-how. One just has to "stand in line" to the toilet and the other can fiddle undisturbed with all aircraft electronics. Thus I consider precisely such a "hijacking" one of the more plausible scenarios in the case of MH370. And the issue has still not been addressed.
The video was first linked to on pprune but might be unlisted and the thread is long so I can't find it but will post again, if I do find it.