Airplanes Hackable by Phone? Not So Fast…

As a rule, if a sensational headline about some dangerous new hacking threat seems too scary to be true, it probably is.

A great example is this week’s hysteria over aircraft hacking, invoked by a security consultant who demonstrated the concept on an Android phone. For many publications, the temptation to frighten readers was too irresistible. Headlines with words like “takeover,” “hijack” and “crash” abound.

In reality, the risk of getting in a plane crash at the hands of some evil hacker is non-existent at this point. Aviation groups, flight equipment makers and even a pilot are all saying there’s nothing to worry about.

Let’s step back and look at what was demonstrated this week by Hugo Teso, a consultant for Germany-based n.runs AG. As Forbes reports, Teso found vulnerabilities in two systems that handle communication between airplanes and air traffic controllers. Using an Android app and an exploit framework, Teso hacked into a virtual airplane, which he cobbled together from training simulation software and flight management hardware that he bought on eBay.

As you might expect, there’s a big difference between a PC-based training simulator and the actual in-flight systems that commercial airlines use. Real flight systems have extra protection and redundancies. The simulation does not. In a statement to the Inquirer, the European Aviation Safety Agency said that Teso’s system does not reveal any potential vulnerabilities in the real world.

Likewise, the Federal Aviation Administration said that Teso’s hack “does not pose a flight safety concern because it does not work on certified flight hardware.

But what if we assume that eventually, someone will figure out how to hack into a real flight management system? The good news here is that pilots aren’t helpless. If a hacker were to beam in a few unwanted commands, pilots would be able to react quickly and take control. Over at Ask the Pilot, Patrick Smith does the debunking:

" [T]here’s only so much you could do by inputting faulty info to the FMS. The FMS cannot say to the plane, “descend toward the ground now!” or “Slow to stall speed now!” or “Turn left and fly into that building!” It doesn’t work that way.

And anything really weird or unsafe — an incorrect course or altitude setting, say — would be corrected more or less instantaneously by the pilots. "



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