This Coin-Sized Device Can Hack a Boeing 737

Security researchers found that in less than 60 seconds, they could open a hatch on a plane's exterior, plug in a tiny device, and redirect the aircraft's autopilot or sabotage its flight plan. Even as the digital components of so many life-critical systems have proven susceptible to cybersabotage-- cars, medical devices, even water utilities and power grids --the computer systems of airplanes have, thankfully, remained uniquely inaccessible to hackers. But one group of academic researchers has spent years testing a different, devious approach to aviation cybersecurity. Perhaps, they suggest, a plane could be hacked the same way that spies and saboteurs have targeted other high-value, offline computers: by surreptitiously gaining physical access to one and plugging in a device designed to silently run the attackers' malicious code. Tomorrow at the Usenix Cybersecurity Conference, researchers from the University of California at San Diego and Oberlin College will present a hacking technique capable of commandeering the autopilot of a Boeing 737 to redirect its navigation or silently altering key values in the plane's takeoff and fuel calculations while spoofing the results on the pilot's screen--subtle changes the researchers say could potentially cause anything from runway overruns on takeoff to diversions to a different country's airspace to catastrophic crashes.