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Airliners Could be Vulnerable to Hacking

posted by CoolHand on Thursday April 16 2015, @09:29AM   Printer-friendly
from the who'd-have-thought-this-would-ever-happen dept.

kaszz writes:

U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) warns that the computers that control and monitor the aircraft isn't protected enough by on-board firewalls intended to protect avionics from hackers. These could be breached if flight control and entertainment systems use the same wiring and routers had they in turn, been connected to the on-board WiFi. The GAO report authors stated that the affected planes include the Boeing 787 Dreamliner, the Airbus A350 and A380. All have advanced cockpits that are wired into the same WiFi system used by passengers.

 
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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday April 16 2015, @10:55AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday April 16 2015, @10:55AM (#171511)

    Until the first terrorist attack uses this vulnerability. Then the demand for vulnerable airplanes will plummet.

  • (Score: 4, Touché) by Ryuugami on Thursday April 16 2015, @11:05AM

    by Ryuugami (2925) on Thursday April 16 2015, @11:05AM (#171513)

    Then the demand for vulnerable airplanes will plummet.

    --
    If a shit storm's on the horizon, it's good to know far enough ahead you can at least bring along an umbrella. - D.Weber

  • (Score: 5, Funny) by GreatAuntAnesthesia on Thursday April 16 2015, @11:51AM

    by GreatAuntAnesthesia (3275) on Thursday April 16 2015, @11:51AM (#171536) Journal

    Nope. What will happen then is that the airport security will bring in some stupid, ineffective rule that all laptops and tablets must be opened at the airport and "scanned for terrorist software" (using some shitty Windows 8-only software scanner that only scans [1] for the one specific known threat that actually worked. Naturally this software is rarely, if ever, updated to cover new potential threats) All those pesky phones, [2]) USB sticks, HIDs and Apple devices that are also potential attack tools will be exempt simply because LALALALAWECAN'THEARYOU. Any hardware running other OSes will be viewed as suspicious and confiscated, and the owner placed on a terrorist watchlist.

    Meanwhile, on the plane side, the vulnerable systems will remain completely unchanged for all existing aircraft. New aircraft however will have to have a secondary independent flight control system in place, built on Windows XP and IE6, with a government backdoor that allows law-enforcement to remotely take control of the plane from the ground and guide it safely down in the event of an aircraft being hacked / hijacked. Don't worry, this backdoor could never ever ever be abused in any way. Oh no.

    Did I miss anything?

    [1] With significantly less than 100% accuracy
    [2] But nevertheless cost the taxpayer several hundred million to implement via some favoured government contractor.