Boeing 757 Testing Shows Airplanes Vulnerable to Hacking, DHS Says

A team of government, industry and academic officials successfully demonstrated that a commercial aircraft could be remotely hacked in a non-laboratory setting last year, a U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) official said Wednesday at the 2017 CyberSat Summit in Tysons Corner, Virginia.

“We got the airplane on Sept. 19, 2016. Two days later, I was successful in accomplishing a remote, non-cooperative, penetration,” said Robert Hickey, aviation program manager within the Cyber Security Division of the DHS Science and Technology (S&T) Directorate.

“[Which] means I didn’t have anybody touching the airplane, I didn’t have an insider threat. I stood off using typical stuff that could get through security and we were able to establish a presence on the systems of the aircraft.” Hickey said the details of the hack and the work his team are doing are classified, but said they accessed the aircraft’s systems through radio frequency communications, adding that, based on the RF configuration of most aircraft, “you can come to grips pretty quickly where we went” on the aircraft.

The aircraft that DHS is using for its tests is a legacy Boeing 757 commercial plane purchased by the S&T branch

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Accessed using RF. So it isn't same questionable claimed method of access as claimed through the entertainment system.

This would seem to rule out the low end would be attackers. Probably still a problem issue.

I would imagine we won't hear much about the method without some insider leaking it.

a reply to: roadgravel

I stood off using typical stuff that could get through security and we were able to establish a presence on the systems of the aircraft.” Hickey said the details of the hack and the work his team are doing are classified,

After 911 airlines had to submit to this kind of access so that they could stop hijackers from taking over a planes controls.

That why they banned in cabin laptops and cell phones, right?

To actually be able to fly the plane from a hack, they would have to get into the autopilot systems to do it. Is there some sort of master cutoff switch, besides just the AP on/off? Zaphod?

a reply to: iTruthSeeker

There's a circuit breaker that would kill power to it.

This hack conveniently took place on a parked aircraft, so no one knows what they would have been able to do when it was flying, and of course what they actually accessed is classified, beyond "yes, I did it". Think someone is fishing for funding, or control?

Oh goodie. Especially now that they're blabbering mouthing about it cant wait to see how this plays out...