In-Flight Airplanes can now be HACKED
A security researcher is set to prove how security weaknesses in satellite communication (SATCOM) technology exposed “some of the largest airlines in the U.S. and Europe” to hackers and could be exploited by adversaries to reveal NATO bases in conflict zones.
Building on research first published in 2014, expert at cybersecurity company IO/Active, will tell attendees at 2019’s BlackHat hacker conference in August how “entire fleets” of airplanes were left accessible from the internet, leaving hundreds of in-flight craft at risk. His talk, using the same name as a previous research report, is titled “Last Call for SATCOM Security.”
Experts now proven all previous theories—which suggested ships, aircraft, military personnel, emergency services, media, and industrial facilities were all vulnerable—and is now able to demonstrate exactly how a plane’s WiFi network can be tampered with from the land below.
"As far as I know it will be the first research of its own that will demonstrate that it's possible to hack into communications devices on an in-flight aircraft…from the ground,". "Experts also managed to get access to important communications devices in the aircraft,”
While I/O Active, already well-known in cybersecurity circles for experiments in car hacking, has attempted to report all the potential bugs to impacted companies, the researcher has acknowledged that a number of “significant vulnerabilities” are still exploitable. None of analysis put lives at risk, but bugs in some SATCOM devices "could be used to perform cyber-physical" attacks.
"This has to be explained carefully, and experts got all the technical details backing all claim. It's not an apocalypse, but basically there are some scenarios that are possible,” Experts will show SATCOM devices being weaponized by leveraging the security flaws.
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