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Hacks on a Plane

SECURITY / 05.20.15 / Alex Manea

Inside BlackBerry for Business Blog

Passenger airplane travelling through sky against stormy bolt cloudscape

Working in IT security my entire career, I’ve seen some amazing things – from hacked insulin pumps to hacked cars to an ATM spitting out money live on stage. But of all those news stories, presentations and discussions, this might be the craziest one:

“A cybersecurity consultant told the FBI he hacked into computer systems aboard airliners up to 20 times and managed to control an aircraft engine during a flight, according to federal court documents.”

Now there’s still debate around whether the consultant actually interfered with the operation of the plane in-flight or simply proved that he could do so in a simulated test, but what’s clear is that the separation between the in-flight passenger entertainment systems and the electronic systems that control the airplane is nowhere near as safe as it needs to be.

Security is like health: We all know it’s important, but we often…

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