16 ms·

Hacker Says He Can Break Into Airplane Systems Using In-Flight Wi-Fi

77 points by uger 12y ago

com2kid 12y ago
I interned at Boeing for one summer on the 787 project. The way Boeing does networking at first seems old fashioned and asinine, until you think about it for a bit. For one thing, they had static routing tables in place on a per port basis, and this was very finely gone over. Not counting all the other layers of protection in place, it was the case that flat out the consumer focused networking gear was not able to get packets routed over to any critical systems. At the time, our threat assessment was "Osama Bin Laden gets on board with a laptop". IIRC, and it has been quite a few years (the better part of a decade!), the few hardwired ports that did have access to more critical systems could only be used by laptops that had certificates on them providing authentication. Without that, even the ports that DID have the potential for routing to more important systems on board would get all their traffic forwarded to /dev/null.
- brandon272 12y ago
  Thanks for sharing! I would have always assumed that there was an air gap between the consumer focused IFE networking gear and the flight systems.
  - StavrosK 12y ago
    Why are the two systems even communicating?
    - WatchDog 12y ago
      That's a good question, one example I can think of is the TV channel on some aircraft that displays positional and airspeed information to passengers. I assume this data comes somewhere from the flight computers.
      - gizmo686 12y ago
        Probably, although if you were paranoid enough (or required by regulation), you could airgap the TVs and give them information through a normal GPS system (minus the artificial altitude restriction), or have a hardware unidirectional data path. More reasonably, you could consider the TVs part of the flight system network (with many of the same protections to prevent someone from physically opening one and hacking), and still have an airgapped wifi network.
        StavrosK 12y ago
        What altitude restriction? My phones' GPS works fine in flight, I use it a lot to check speed and altitude.
        klodolph 12y ago
        Yeah, the altitude restrictions don't really apply to commercial flight. You can conduct a test yourself, you just need to get a little higher and travel a little faster than your typical 757. Try attaching your cell phone to a rocket travelling over 1200 mph or above 60,000 feet, you'll find that your GPS unit basically shuts down. That's not to say that your GPS hardware is incapable of operating under those parameters, it's just designed to shut down so it can't be used to guide ICBMs. Commercial airplanes typically operate at half the altitude and speed which would trigger the condition.
        MichaelApproved 12y ago
        Don't both speed and altitude trigger the block? The gps must be over a certain altitude AND be going faster than a certain speed.
        callesgg 12y ago
        It is one or the other.
        proexploit 12y ago
  - com2kid 12y ago
    Most IFE stuff is aftermarket. Boeing was aiming to make things like Wi-Fi standard across all 787s. I'm not sure to what extent IFE was part of 787 plans. I mostly worked on the Electronic Flight Bag, which is a hilarious case of Boeing realizing that paper flight bags were asinine, and then coming up with an industrial strength solution to the problem of carrying what amounted to a few PDFs on board an airplane. Last time I checked (years ago) airlines were just moving to iPads whenever possible. (A flight bag has hundreds upon hundreds of pages of paper that are required by law to be on board an airplane with the pilot, everything from safety literature to information on the current flight, it is a huge hassle) Again the problem here is, if Boeing ships something stock, the FAA equivalent in every market a plane will be sold into has to agree to every decision made. If a single regulatory body anywhere declares that iPads are not safe for use onboard an airplane, well, the entire idea gets scrapped. This happens to a lot of good ideas. If Boeing had its way, we'd all have in flight cellular, Wi-Fi, and more, as options on every plane trip we took. Boeing spends a lot of time and a lot of effort on what they know will likely be futile efforts to improve the passengers' experience. But they try anyway. Everyone I met working there flat out loved airplanes with the same zest and zeal we all here share about technology.
    - joezydeco 12y ago
      The latest flightbag systems look a bit more sophisticated than a fancy PDF reader on a tablet. Here's a glimpse of the flightbag that Lufthansa is using on the B747. It actively maps plane position in the terminal among other things. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nhXXjNybx6A&t=2m4s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nhXXjNybx6A&t=2m4s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nhXXjNybx6A&t=13m43s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nhXXjNybx6A&t=13m43s (FYI, PilotsEye.TV on YouTube is incredible if you enjoy geeking out on airplane stuff. They somehow convinced a few European carriers to mount cameras all over the cockpits and talk to the pilots in-flight. There are DVDs as well but I think they're all in German. Check out the A340 that loses an engine in the air. I don't think that's ever been publicly filmed before).
      - com2kid 12y ago
        True! But the paper books ended up being replaced by ipads in some cases. The EFB does other stuff as well, but the effort around getting all the papers onto it versus "use an iPad" is rather amusing imho.
- jessaustin 12y ago
  So was this 802.1X? Do you know if they upgraded to 802.1X-2010? TFA says that logins are hard-coded; does that agree with your recollection?
  - com2kid 12y ago
    All I can remember was that some critical systems still used an industry variant of token ring, because it provides hard promises for bandwidth and latency, akin to what an RTOS provides in regards to a guaranteed time slice. It was funny, in my networking class we were told there were two things we'd likely never encounter: Static routing tables and token ring. I recall there was some controversy about having the low security stuff on the same network as anything else at all. The FAA freaked the heck out and made Boeing go to the umpteenth degree to make it super secure. I really should remember more given that my resume had a line item on it of "Helped prepare 787 Avionics security training material"!
- powera 12y ago
  That does seems wrong. First, did Osama (or Al Qaeda) really have any experience with hacking computer systems in this way? Second, why would you rely on "static routing tables" and "certificates" for defending against an attacker in the worst case when you could just use an air gap?
  - com2kid 12y ago
    There are multiple networks on an airplane. Some are air gapped, but running multiple parallel wiring systems adds a lot of weight to a plane. If a medium and low security system can share some cabling and be secured through software, then there is little reason not to. The engine control wasn't hooked up to the AV system or anything!
  - deleted 12y ago
    [deleted]
  - deleted 12y ago
    [deleted]
- higherpurpose 12y ago
  How do you explain Boeing's decision for backdoors in their planes, then? If a hacker ever gets access to that, Boeing deserves to go bankrupt over international outrage. http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2012/may/29/cyber-attack-concerns-boeing-chip http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2012/may/29/cyber-atta...
chasing 12y ago
Define "break in" and "interfere." Could he down an airplane? Or just access logs?
- bignaj 12y ago
  If you read the article: "One vulnerability that Santamarta said he found in equipment from all five manufacturers was the use of 'hardcoded' log-in credentials, which are designed to let service technicians access any piece of equipment with the same login and password." Sounds like he could access the plane's systems from an administrator's perspective. I would watch the Black Hat presentation to be sure.
  - mikeash 12y ago
    The "all five manufacturers" in question are the manufacturers of satellite equipment. It sounds like he could access the satellite entertainment equipment as an administrator, but that's (one would hope) a far cry from being able to access anything important on the plane.
userbinator 12y ago
A few years ago I remember reading a discussion about the possibility of "hacking a plane" and someone who worked in the industry said that the avionics were immune to this since the communication only goes one way. On the other hand, I don't doubt at all that the IFE/passenger displays could be hacked, since apparently things like this happen rather frequently: http://img.thedailywtf.com/images/13/q2/e67/Pic-2.jpg http://img.thedailywtf.com/images/13/q2/e67/Pic-2.jpg http://img.thedailywtf.com/images/13/q3/e74/Pic-4.jpg http://img.thedailywtf.com/images/13/q3/e74/Pic-4.jpg http://img.thedailywtf.com/images/200905/errord/DSC_0001.JPG http://img.thedailywtf.com/images/200905/errord/DSC_0001.JPG http://img.thedailywtf.com/images/14/q2/e117/Pic-5.jpg http://img.thedailywtf.com/images/14/q2/e117/Pic-5.jpg
- VMG 12y ago
  these are images of bugs, not hacks
- com2kid 12y ago
  Anything consumer focused installed after a plane leaves the factory is subject to much less stringent checks. Anything Boeing puts on a plane as stock has to pass review by the appropriate agency of all countries the plane will be sold to. I remember one poor guy, his job was to try and negotiate the necessary agreements for in flight phone calls for every country the 787 would be flying over for the routes of its initial sales. As I recall, he got damned close! It had to be scrapped when some countries wouldn't allow it. Individual carriers can easily enough add it to only flights over countries that they can meet proper regulations for. Much less of a hassle!
- TeMPOraL 12y ago
  Oh those displays are so ugly... Someone please hire Michael Okuda or someone else who has this thing called "attention to detail" and knows how to make displays that don't look like crap. But yeah, I know, no profit in making things look nice; it's enough to make them just not repulsive. It saddens me that in the last 20 years we've developed many technologies straight out Star Trek and others, and yet they don't feel like from the movies mostly because no one cares about aesthetics in real world.
scosman 12y ago
no no no no. They just started letting us use devices during takeoff. No more alarmist headlines please.
- carlfranzon 12y ago
  Precisely my thought...it was fun while it lasted!
kefs 12y ago
Ridiculous article.. Here's the actual blog post, and the 25-page whitepaper. http://blog.ioactive.com/2014/04/a-wake-up-call-for-satcom-security.html http://blog.ioactive.com/2014/04/a-wake-up-call-for-satcom-s... http://www.ioactive.com/pdfs/IOActive_SATCOM_Security_WhitePaper.pdf http://www.ioactive.com/pdfs/IOActive_SATCOM_Security_WhiteP... On a side note, what's with all the similar press photos of this guy in front of graffiti? https://imgur.com/a/nOuff https://imgur.com/a/nOuff
- S_A_P 12y ago
  The graffiti gives him mad street cred.
  - jbigelow76 12y ago
    It's Gilfoyle[1] from Silicon Valley! [1] http://silicon-valley.wikia.com/wiki/Gilfoyle http://silicon-valley.wikia.com/wiki/Gilfoyle
- prawn 12y ago
  A newspaper writer or photographer will often have questionable ideas for framing you in a photograph. I know of one guy locally who ended up wrapped in networking cables (including ethernet plugs in his ears!?) for a photo because he's a web developer and you know, internet, cables... They would've said "Have you got any laptops you could have with and near you? OK, bring them all and we can place them around. I saw a great door with graffiti nearby, we can shoot there. Now, look like you're serious and might hack something at any second." Source: We got local press for hexiledgame.com (2 million plays in first 10 days, had never made a game before) and the photographer came out on Monday. And I think we escaped lightly! Most frequent instruction was "Now, smile like you've had 2 million plays!" All the while, I was thinking "We need to get back to adding language support and I haven't even made a press kit -- too worried to smile..."
ChrisClark 12y ago
During an international Air Canada flight, they had USB ports right beside the touch screen seat back monitors. I thought I'd try plugging my remote mouse into it. Worked perfectly fine, a mouse pointer showed up and I could use it fine. I was wondering what I could do with a keyboard, or a nicely crafted USB stick. The interface seems to be an HTML/JS interface, so I'm not sure what OS it was running on. The mouse pointer was not a Windows default so it was probably Linux. I wonder if I could have switched terminals if I had my keyboard. Also, if I had my keyboard I'd be too scared to try.
- kenrikm 12y ago
  Some Delta planes and I think all Virgin planes that have that inflight infotainment system run on a flavor of linux with a ton of plugins and insecure SSH enabled by default. Ask me how I know.
  - dandruffhead 12y ago
    How?
- xerophtye 12y ago
  I remember once the screen in front of me crashed and clearly booted up some flavour of linux. (it even displayed the penguin!) Oh and i think it did end up on a console... though there were no USB ports visible at the time
  - contingencies 12y ago
    I've seen this too.
- blueskin_ 12y ago
  Flew on a 787 recently, they had a problem with the IFE system and rebooted it; it's Linux. Recognised the default X11 cursor straight away and was even able to move it around with my touchscreen before it disappeared and their UI came up. That plane had a USB port by each screen too; I didn't have any peripherals to test if it interfaced though.
orblivion 12y ago
Why would the airplane's critical systems be in any way connected to passenger WiFi? Or the Internet in any way?
- com2kid 12y ago
  787s have some really cool self monitoring abilities. Every part on them is wired up with every type of sensor you can imagine. This allows the plane to track its health at all times. The coolest feature we saw a demo of (I have no idea if it shipped!) was the plane radioing ahead to the airport it was headed to with a maintenance request form auto filled out! Personnel at the airport would be informed and have the relevant maintenance manuals automatically downloaded to their laptop. This actually removed a lot of down time for the plane, as typically workers would have to manually inspect many of these parts on a regular basis to check wear levels. Seriously cool stuff!
  - x1798DE 12y ago
    What does that have to do with the public-facing wifi? I suppose if there's any radio connection and they have hard-coded credentials, the "public-facing" part of it doesn't really matter as much, but still, it's kinda basic stuff to airgap critical networks from the public.
    - kalleboo 12y ago
      That's the multi-million dollar question. I could theorize the cheapest way for the features com2kid is talking about to work is to use the commercial Internet connection for uploads. Then the device that connects needs an IP, and just happens to be running a telnet server for maintenance (it's always telnet) and nobody ever changes the default credentials. Now that device still has no actual control but it's connected to the airplane systems over a serial console. Which is also available to log in with the default credentials... Another comment here suggests he only gained access to the satellite systems which would suggest this is overblown.
      - 12y ago
tehwalrus 12y ago
isn't this why equipment used to be administered with a hard serial port on the back? (I remember switches that need to be administered that way, from a few years ago). It boggles the mind that hard coded credentials to flight systems could be exploited from customer facing wifi. Sort-of relevant XKCD: http://xkcd.com/463/ http://xkcd.com/463/

77 points by uger 12y ago

I interned at Boeing for one summer on the 787 project. The way Boeing does networking at first seems old fashioned and asinine, until you think about it for a bit. For one thing, they had static routing tables in place on a per port basis, and this was very finely gone over. Not counting all the other layers of protection in place, it was the case that flat out the consumer focused networking gear was not able to get packets routed over to any critical systems. At the time, our threat assessment was "Osama Bin Laden gets on board with a laptop". IIRC, and it has been quite a few years (the better part of a decade!), the few hardwired ports that did have access to more critical systems could only be used by laptops that had certificates on them providing authentication. Without that, even the ports that DID have the potential for routing to more important systems on board would get all their traffic forwarded to /dev/null.

brandon272 12y ago
Thanks for sharing! I would have always assumed that there was an air gap between the consumer focused IFE networking gear and the flight systems.
- StavrosK 12y ago
  Why are the two systems even communicating?
  - WatchDog 12y ago
    That's a good question, one example I can think of is the TV channel on some aircraft that displays positional and airspeed information to passengers. I assume this data comes somewhere from the flight computers.
    - gizmo686 12y ago
      Probably, although if you were paranoid enough (or required by regulation), you could airgap the TVs and give them information through a normal GPS system (minus the artificial altitude restriction), or have a hardware unidirectional data path. More reasonably, you could consider the TVs part of the flight system network (with many of the same protections to prevent someone from physically opening one and hacking), and still have an airgapped wifi network.
      - StavrosK 12y ago
        What altitude restriction? My phones' GPS works fine in flight, I use it a lot to check speed and altitude.
        klodolph 12y ago
        Yeah, the altitude restrictions don't really apply to commercial flight. You can conduct a test yourself, you just need to get a little higher and travel a little faster than your typical 757. Try attaching your cell phone to a rocket travelling over 1200 mph or above 60,000 feet, you'll find that your GPS unit basically shuts down. That's not to say that your GPS hardware is incapable of operating under those parameters, it's just designed to shut down so it can't be used to guide ICBMs. Commercial airplanes typically operate at half the altitude and speed which would trigger the condition.
        MichaelApproved 12y ago
        Don't both speed and altitude trigger the block? The gps must be over a certain altitude AND be going faster than a certain speed.
        callesgg 12y ago
        It is one or the other.
        proexploit 12y ago
- com2kid 12y ago
  Most IFE stuff is aftermarket. Boeing was aiming to make things like Wi-Fi standard across all 787s. I'm not sure to what extent IFE was part of 787 plans. I mostly worked on the Electronic Flight Bag, which is a hilarious case of Boeing realizing that paper flight bags were asinine, and then coming up with an industrial strength solution to the problem of carrying what amounted to a few PDFs on board an airplane. Last time I checked (years ago) airlines were just moving to iPads whenever possible. (A flight bag has hundreds upon hundreds of pages of paper that are required by law to be on board an airplane with the pilot, everything from safety literature to information on the current flight, it is a huge hassle) Again the problem here is, if Boeing ships something stock, the FAA equivalent in every market a plane will be sold into has to agree to every decision made. If a single regulatory body anywhere declares that iPads are not safe for use onboard an airplane, well, the entire idea gets scrapped. This happens to a lot of good ideas. If Boeing had its way, we'd all have in flight cellular, Wi-Fi, and more, as options on every plane trip we took. Boeing spends a lot of time and a lot of effort on what they know will likely be futile efforts to improve the passengers' experience. But they try anyway. Everyone I met working there flat out loved airplanes with the same zest and zeal we all here share about technology.
  - joezydeco 12y ago
    The latest flightbag systems look a bit more sophisticated than a fancy PDF reader on a tablet. Here's a glimpse of the flightbag that Lufthansa is using on the B747. It actively maps plane position in the terminal among other things. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nhXXjNybx6A&t=2m4s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nhXXjNybx6A&t=2m4s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nhXXjNybx6A&t=13m43s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nhXXjNybx6A&t=13m43s (FYI, PilotsEye.TV on YouTube is incredible if you enjoy geeking out on airplane stuff. They somehow convinced a few European carriers to mount cameras all over the cockpits and talk to the pilots in-flight. There are DVDs as well but I think they're all in German. Check out the A340 that loses an engine in the air. I don't think that's ever been publicly filmed before).
    - com2kid 12y ago
      True! But the paper books ended up being replaced by ipads in some cases. The EFB does other stuff as well, but the effort around getting all the papers onto it versus "use an iPad" is rather amusing imho.
jessaustin 12y ago
So was this 802.1X? Do you know if they upgraded to 802.1X-2010? TFA says that logins are hard-coded; does that agree with your recollection?
- com2kid 12y ago
  All I can remember was that some critical systems still used an industry variant of token ring, because it provides hard promises for bandwidth and latency, akin to what an RTOS provides in regards to a guaranteed time slice. It was funny, in my networking class we were told there were two things we'd likely never encounter: Static routing tables and token ring. I recall there was some controversy about having the low security stuff on the same network as anything else at all. The FAA freaked the heck out and made Boeing go to the umpteenth degree to make it super secure. I really should remember more given that my resume had a line item on it of "Helped prepare 787 Avionics security training material"!
powera 12y ago
That does seems wrong. First, did Osama (or Al Qaeda) really have any experience with hacking computer systems in this way? Second, why would you rely on "static routing tables" and "certificates" for defending against an attacker in the worst case when you could just use an air gap?
- com2kid 12y ago
  There are multiple networks on an airplane. Some are air gapped, but running multiple parallel wiring systems adds a lot of weight to a plane. If a medium and low security system can share some cabling and be secured through software, then there is little reason not to. The engine control wasn't hooked up to the AV system or anything!
- deleted 12y ago
  [deleted]
- deleted 12y ago
  [deleted]
higherpurpose 12y ago
How do you explain Boeing's decision for backdoors in their planes, then? If a hacker ever gets access to that, Boeing deserves to go bankrupt over international outrage. http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2012/may/29/cyber-attack-concerns-boeing-chip http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2012/may/29/cyber-atta...

chasing 12y ago

Define "break in" and "interfere." Could he down an airplane? Or just access logs?

bignaj 12y ago
If you read the article: "One vulnerability that Santamarta said he found in equipment from all five manufacturers was the use of 'hardcoded' log-in credentials, which are designed to let service technicians access any piece of equipment with the same login and password." Sounds like he could access the plane's systems from an administrator's perspective. I would watch the Black Hat presentation to be sure.
- mikeash 12y ago
  The "all five manufacturers" in question are the manufacturers of satellite equipment. It sounds like he could access the satellite entertainment equipment as an administrator, but that's (one would hope) a far cry from being able to access anything important on the plane.

userbinator 12y ago

A few years ago I remember reading a discussion about the possibility of "hacking a plane" and someone who worked in the industry said that the avionics were immune to this since the communication only goes one way. On the other hand, I don't doubt at all that the IFE/passenger displays could be hacked, since apparently things like this happen rather frequently: http://img.thedailywtf.com/images/13/q2/e67/Pic-2.jpg http://img.thedailywtf.com/images/13/q2/e67/Pic-2.jpg http://img.thedailywtf.com/images/13/q3/e74/Pic-4.jpg http://img.thedailywtf.com/images/13/q3/e74/Pic-4.jpg http://img.thedailywtf.com/images/200905/errord/DSC_0001.JPG http://img.thedailywtf.com/images/200905/errord/DSC_0001.JPG http://img.thedailywtf.com/images/14/q2/e117/Pic-5.jpg http://img.thedailywtf.com/images/14/q2/e117/Pic-5.jpg

VMG 12y ago
these are images of bugs, not hacks
com2kid 12y ago
Anything consumer focused installed after a plane leaves the factory is subject to much less stringent checks. Anything Boeing puts on a plane as stock has to pass review by the appropriate agency of all countries the plane will be sold to. I remember one poor guy, his job was to try and negotiate the necessary agreements for in flight phone calls for every country the 787 would be flying over for the routes of its initial sales. As I recall, he got damned close! It had to be scrapped when some countries wouldn't allow it. Individual carriers can easily enough add it to only flights over countries that they can meet proper regulations for. Much less of a hassle!
TeMPOraL 12y ago
Oh those displays are so ugly... Someone please hire Michael Okuda or someone else who has this thing called "attention to detail" and knows how to make displays that don't look like crap. But yeah, I know, no profit in making things look nice; it's enough to make them just not repulsive. It saddens me that in the last 20 years we've developed many technologies straight out Star Trek and others, and yet they don't feel like from the movies mostly because no one cares about aesthetics in real world.

scosman 12y ago

no no no no. They just started letting us use devices during takeoff. No more alarmist headlines please.

carlfranzon 12y ago
Precisely my thought...it was fun while it lasted!

kefs 12y ago

Ridiculous article.. Here's the actual blog post, and the 25-page whitepaper. http://blog.ioactive.com/2014/04/a-wake-up-call-for-satcom-security.html http://blog.ioactive.com/2014/04/a-wake-up-call-for-satcom-s... http://www.ioactive.com/pdfs/IOActive_SATCOM_Security_WhitePaper.pdf http://www.ioactive.com/pdfs/IOActive_SATCOM_Security_WhiteP... On a side note, what's with all the similar press photos of this guy in front of graffiti? https://imgur.com/a/nOuff https://imgur.com/a/nOuff

S_A_P 12y ago
The graffiti gives him mad street cred.
- jbigelow76 12y ago
  It's Gilfoyle[1] from Silicon Valley! [1] http://silicon-valley.wikia.com/wiki/Gilfoyle http://silicon-valley.wikia.com/wiki/Gilfoyle
prawn 12y ago
A newspaper writer or photographer will often have questionable ideas for framing you in a photograph. I know of one guy locally who ended up wrapped in networking cables (including ethernet plugs in his ears!?) for a photo because he's a web developer and you know, internet, cables... They would've said "Have you got any laptops you could have with and near you? OK, bring them all and we can place them around. I saw a great door with graffiti nearby, we can shoot there. Now, look like you're serious and might hack something at any second." Source: We got local press for hexiledgame.com (2 million plays in first 10 days, had never made a game before) and the photographer came out on Monday. And I think we escaped lightly! Most frequent instruction was "Now, smile like you've had 2 million plays!" All the while, I was thinking "We need to get back to adding language support and I haven't even made a press kit -- too worried to smile..."

ChrisClark 12y ago

During an international Air Canada flight, they had USB ports right beside the touch screen seat back monitors. I thought I'd try plugging my remote mouse into it. Worked perfectly fine, a mouse pointer showed up and I could use it fine. I was wondering what I could do with a keyboard, or a nicely crafted USB stick. The interface seems to be an HTML/JS interface, so I'm not sure what OS it was running on. The mouse pointer was not a Windows default so it was probably Linux. I wonder if I could have switched terminals if I had my keyboard. Also, if I had my keyboard I'd be too scared to try.

kenrikm 12y ago
Some Delta planes and I think all Virgin planes that have that inflight infotainment system run on a flavor of linux with a ton of plugins and insecure SSH enabled by default. Ask me how I know.
- dandruffhead 12y ago
  How?
xerophtye 12y ago
I remember once the screen in front of me crashed and clearly booted up some flavour of linux. (it even displayed the penguin!) Oh and i think it did end up on a console... though there were no USB ports visible at the time
- contingencies 12y ago
  I've seen this too.
blueskin_ 12y ago
Flew on a 787 recently, they had a problem with the IFE system and rebooted it; it's Linux. Recognised the default X11 cursor straight away and was even able to move it around with my touchscreen before it disappeared and their UI came up. That plane had a USB port by each screen too; I didn't have any peripherals to test if it interfaced though.

orblivion 12y ago

Why would the airplane's critical systems be in any way connected to passenger WiFi? Or the Internet in any way?

com2kid 12y ago
787s have some really cool self monitoring abilities. Every part on them is wired up with every type of sensor you can imagine. This allows the plane to track its health at all times. The coolest feature we saw a demo of (I have no idea if it shipped!) was the plane radioing ahead to the airport it was headed to with a maintenance request form auto filled out! Personnel at the airport would be informed and have the relevant maintenance manuals automatically downloaded to their laptop. This actually removed a lot of down time for the plane, as typically workers would have to manually inspect many of these parts on a regular basis to check wear levels. Seriously cool stuff!
- x1798DE 12y ago
  What does that have to do with the public-facing wifi? I suppose if there's any radio connection and they have hard-coded credentials, the "public-facing" part of it doesn't really matter as much, but still, it's kinda basic stuff to airgap critical networks from the public.
  - kalleboo 12y ago
    That's the multi-million dollar question. I could theorize the cheapest way for the features com2kid is talking about to work is to use the commercial Internet connection for uploads. Then the device that connects needs an IP, and just happens to be running a telnet server for maintenance (it's always telnet) and nobody ever changes the default credentials. Now that device still has no actual control but it's connected to the airplane systems over a serial console. Which is also available to log in with the default credentials... Another comment here suggests he only gained access to the satellite systems which would suggest this is overblown.
    - 12y ago

tehwalrus 12y ago

isn't this why equipment used to be administered with a hard serial port on the back? (I remember switches that need to be administered that way, from a few years ago). It boggles the mind that hard coded credentials to flight systems could be exploited from customer facing wifi. Sort-of relevant XKCD: http://xkcd.com/463/ http://xkcd.com/463/