Hacking experts having been warning for years that it’s too easy to breach a cockpit’s defenses. Now an alarming government test proves their point.
By Clive Irving and Joseph Cox
Could terrorists hijack an airliner remotely by hacking into its cockpit controls, putting its fate in their hands?
This question is being asked because of the revelation that a team of cyber experts at the Department of Homeland Security successfully hacked into the avionics of a commercial airplane parked at an airport as part of a test.
The
problem is that nobody with knowledge of aviation cyber security is
sure of how vulnerable airplanes are to such an attack—and some believe
that the DHS test has simply added to the confusion and created needless
alarm.
A Boeing spokesman told The Daily Beast: “We witnessed
the test and can say unequivocally that there was no hack of the
airplane’s flight control systems.”
Information about the extent
of the test is restricted and there is a strong feeling among hacking
experts that the full extent of the threat will remain underestimated—as
they claim it has been for years.
The issue ignited after Robert
Hickey, from the Cyber Security Division of the DHS, told a meeting of
cyber experts in Virginia that his team had “accomplished a remote,
non-cooperative penetration” of a Boeing 757, owned by the department,
while it was parked at Atlantic City airport.
Although
the 757 is basically a 1970s design, hundreds of them are still flown
by American carriers—and nine are operated by the U.S. Air Force for use
by diplomats and officials including one used by the secretary of
State—as well as Donald Trump’s personal jet that he used prominently during the presidential campaign.
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Source: The Daily Beast
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