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Aircraft Entertainment Systems Hacks Are Back (threatpost.com)
Reader msm1267 writes: Researchers at IOActive today disclosed vulnerabilities in Panasonic Avionics In-Flight Entertainment Systems that were reported to the manufacturer close to two years ago. The flaws could be abused to manipulate in-flight data shown to passengers, or access personal information and credit card data swiped at the seat for premium entertainment or Internet access. Given that the firmware is customizable and used by dozens airlines in hundreds of aircraft models, the researchers said it's almost impossible to determine whether the vulnerabilities no longer exist across the board. IOActive said that segmentation between aircraft control and information services that oversee avionics and operational control of a plane should isolate these vulnerabilities to passenger entertainment domains. Whether an attacker could cross those domains and affect critical avionics systems would depend on specific devices and configurations, IOActive said, given that a physical path could exist that connects those systems through satellite communications terminals that provide in-flight updates to critical systems. The concern is that whether in some configurations, IFEs would share access to these devices and provide the physical path an attacker would need to reach critical systems. As for the vulnerabilities in passenger systems, IOActive said there is a lack of authentication and encryption between an on-board server and clients at passenger seats. This could allow an attacker on board to send commands to the IFE system to manipulate what's displayed to passengers, or read payment card data swiped at seats.
I travel a lot for both business and pleasure, and keep a very close eye out for anyone attempting to hack through the in flight entertainment systems. Until these systems are air gapped from the avionics there is a possibility of smashing through a firewall and gaining root. Any attempt should be a class 3 felony similar to attempted hijacking or interfering with a flight crew and the air marshals should be trained to instantly disrupt such attack vectors. It's unfortunate the world we live in now, but people want to kill and companies want to be cheap and the two don't mix.
So anyone can access the _MAKE_AIRPLANE_CRASH_ API call!
Again these hacks are fun but not scary at all. the Infotainment system has NO CONNECTION tot he avionics.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
With the way a lot of these plane systems work these days, it could be a way to download a lot of "free" movies and music.
Peter predicted that you would "deliberately forget" creation 2000 years ago...
They should dump the entertainment systems (and the wifi) and hand out free magazines, snacks, and pillows. Oh, wait, that'd be just like before 9-11. I forgot, now it's best practice to torture everyone, just in case there are any bad actors on the plane.
IOActive said that segmentation between aircraft control and information services that oversee avionics and operational control of a plane should isolate these vulnerabilities to passenger entertainment domains.
That may have been true on older models, but Boeing got an exception to the separation rule for the 787. What's worse, the primary authentication method used to provide 'security' is a protocol that filters packets based on MAC addresses. So you can't plug your own gizmo into an avionics bus. But if you can trick the passenger entertainment units into generating bogus air data (for example), bad stuff can happen.
Have gnu, will travel.
The majority of planes I fly on seldom even have electric outlets to plug in your laptop. I'm usually on the single-class (cattle-class / steerage-class) flights where nobody has anything. I'm not important enough to be on the long haul flights where people expect more than a bag of peanuts and half a can of soda.
Not saying that I like it that way, just that apparently I have less to worry about as a result.
Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.
From the article, not much motivation to hack the systems because there isn't much to be gained. So, not much motivation to secure the systems.
In flight wifi is way too easy to use for free, either using a proxy for limited service as long as you want it (until your fellow passengers gang up on the bandwidth and make it unusable) or full service for fifteen minutes at a time if you have an iPhone (and are willing to clear cookies). Why would I be interested in hacking it any further?
He tried to show them they were exploitable, they kicked him off a plane and charged him with a bunch of nonsense and they haven't done anything to really fix the problem.
Get him back to One World Labs where they can stop this nonsense.
Please?
Place something witty here
1 - hack the entertainment systems to show messages to passengers ...
2 - Show some real-time like plot arcs along the lines of "@copilot #helpterroristshavelockedmeinthetoilet", "@god #ohratswereareallgoingtodie", "@ATC #copilotisintoiletwithmenow #cockpitfullofterrorists",
3 - passengers rush the cockpit, killing the real pilot, copilot, plane's cat, etc.
4 - xxxxx
5 - profit!
the 21st century in the first place? I have my notebook and my smartphone with me.
Instead a dorky display and a headset provide better a normal WiFi. Besides a WiFi router weighs only about 300 grams, instead of a ton of hundreds of displays, and a WiFi router costs only a couple of hundred instead of millions for this System, which later ends up in the price of our air-tickets.
Add to this the cost of additional fuel to carry these displays. Why would I want to pay for the fuel to carry these displays when I have already three HD screens with me anyway?
What about hacking the display of in-flight data to show the plane going a different direction? Maybe a message that the plane has been hijacked? No need to bring down the plane with code if you can get the passengers to break into the cockpit and do it.
I eat only the real part of complex carbohydrates.
To my knowledge they still kept the mac/ip white listing, meaning in flight avionic is only accepting data from the dedicated link to the center, and not anything else, pretty much any packet not coming from the dedicated link is dropped, there is no rerouting. So far as I can see , even in the 787 , it would immediately be dropped in the direction entertainment center => avionic. Airplane and in flight entertainment engineer are not bloody stupid, they are paranoid from *any* data coming from the outside the avionic network, no matter what reassurance programmer gives: pretty much any packet coming from outside is filtered no matter what it spoof as, if it is not coming from the dedicated links. It isn't a network per see. More like a serie of dedicated links.