In April 2013, at the Hack in the Box conference in Amsterdam, a security researcher Hugo Teso presented a worryingly simple demo. He was able to exploit flaws in the Aircraft Communications Addressing and Reporting System (ACARS) and hack into Flight Management Systems (FMS) using a mobile phone.
In an interview with the Sunday Express UK, Dr Sally Leivesley, a former scientific advisor to the UK government department Home Office, suggests that a mobile phone could have been used to hijack the missing Malaysian Airways Boeing 777. She says, “It is looking more and more likely that the control of some systems was taken over in a deceptive manner, either manually, so someone sitting in a seat overriding the autopilot, or via a remote device turning off or overwhelming the systems.
“A mobile phone could have been used to do so or a USB stick.”
Until the ill-fated flight MH370 is actually found and thorough investigations are made, everything said and suggested are mere speculations.
Dr Leivesley’s suggestion was largely based on the demo presented by Mr Teso. It is important to note that Mr Teso’s hack was conducted on a publicly available PC simulated FMS which are normally sold with no encryption or redundancies. When FMS is actually installed on flights they are uniquely encrypted to the aircraft’s hardware. This does not make it hack proof but it certainly isn’t going to be a walk in the park.
Somewhere in the very near future when almost all computing would be done via mobile and wearable devices, mobile hijacking would not just be a possibility but most likely. On this particular occasion though, we do not believe that the missing flight MH370 was mobile-hijacked.
In an interview with the Sunday Express UK, Dr Sally Leivesley, a former scientific advisor to the UK government department Home Office, suggests that a mobile phone could have been used to hijack the missing Malaysian Airways Boeing 777. She says, “It is looking more and more likely that the control of some systems was taken over in a deceptive manner, either manually, so someone sitting in a seat overriding the autopilot, or via a remote device turning off or overwhelming the systems.
“A mobile phone could have been used to do so or a USB stick.”
Until the ill-fated flight MH370 is actually found and thorough investigations are made, everything said and suggested are mere speculations.
Dr Leivesley’s suggestion was largely based on the demo presented by Mr Teso. It is important to note that Mr Teso’s hack was conducted on a publicly available PC simulated FMS which are normally sold with no encryption or redundancies. When FMS is actually installed on flights they are uniquely encrypted to the aircraft’s hardware. This does not make it hack proof but it certainly isn’t going to be a walk in the park.
Somewhere in the very near future when almost all computing would be done via mobile and wearable devices, mobile hijacking would not just be a possibility but most likely. On this particular occasion though, we do not believe that the missing flight MH370 was mobile-hijacked.
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