Week 6 – Hackers could bring down planes with passenger Wi-Fi

            A coworker on my Information Security team found a really cool article on how hackers can actually use the Wi-Fi that is available on a plane to bring down the plane. (Fox News, 2015) More specifically, “The finding by the Government Accountability Office presents chilling new scenarios for passengers. The report doesn't suggest it would be easy to do, or very likely. But it points out that as airlines and the Federal Aviation Administration attempt to modernize planes and flight tracking with Internet-based technology, attackers have a new vulnerability they could exploit” (Fox News, 2015). This obviously brings up some serious concerns that we should all be worried about. It’s bad enough that in today’s world we have to worry about terrorists taking planes down. I suppose now we even have to worry about hackers as well.

            My co-worker actually brought up an interesting point. Why are the plane’s control systems on the same network as the passenger Wi-Fi? This is a very good point. Moreover, “The theoretical vulnerabilities exist within the In Flight Entertainment systems on both the Panasonic and Thales installations, the two main providers of these systems. [. . .] The systems can breached wirelessly, and, once in, a clever hacker can gain access into other areas of the plane’s network” (Fox News, 2015). This is very interesting and brings up many questions. One interesting consideration to me was what is the worst case scenario here?

According to the article, the “worst case would likely be the ability to access the avionics systems, monitor and possibly influence the control interfaces and other critical flight environments typically found on the private plane subnet, giving the hacker the ability to intercept and possibly modify the packets of data being sent from the controls to the actuators using readily available software” (Fox News, 2015). These are all extremely important points to note here. While this is still a relatively new issue, it is still potentially an issue. As we continue on, the potential threats in our environment continue to grow.

 

References

Fox News. (2015, April 15). GAO reports warns hackers could bring down plane using passenger Wi-Fi. Retrieved from Fox News: http://www.foxnews.com/tech/2015/04/15/gao-reports-warns-hackers-could-bring-down-plane-using-passenger-wi-fi/