Not really familiar with the Boeing architecture, but having worked on similar systems for other commercial aircraft, "firewall" is an understatement for the systems that act as gateways between the aircraft network domains with different criticality levels.

The IFE is in the Passenger Information and Entertainment Services Domain (as defined by the standard ARINC664 Aircraft Data Networks). A basic assumption regarding the connectivity to more sensitive domains is that PIESD is totally insecure and anything can happen.

Finally to people wondering why aircraft designers would physically connect networks with vastly different security requirements: it's for making it possible to share aircraft/ground communication means (satcom...)

I find this hard to believe. I always thought that IFE and avionics are on separate machines and run over different internal networks and wires. But I'm also not a Boeing engineer.

Can someone confirm the above post?

You or I would have completely different sets of wires.

Sadly, it seems they usually share wires and are separated by firewalls.

There's been lots of CCC and defcon talks about hacking in-flight systems. Googling "panasonic ife hack" gets plenty of hits, as does "Chris Roberts" who is a hacker who has made some pretty big claims about actually really hacking planes in flight and other stupid things. And there are articles like this https://www.wired.com/2015/04/hackers-commandeer-new-planes-... that talk about how the systems share wires.

I don't know anyone who believes those claims, which have become a kind of shared joke in the software security community.

Nobody in the office here (I work on IFE & avionics software) believes those claims either.

Roberts? Yes.

Shared wires? That's fact, right?

I'm simply commenting on the notion that any packet he sent an IFE caused the plane to literally, perceptibly move. I don't need or want to derive the probability of that having occurred from first principles.

I only have experience with smaller, general aviation aircraft (Turboprop, 8 seats) but the IFE is indeed connected to the same box that handles maintenance tools. The ipad we use to troubleshoot the engines is on the same wifi network that we use to watch videos.

Do you have source on panasonic IFE hacks? Sounds interesting.

(Its mentioned in the opening paragraph of the article ;) Its been a big thing for a long time and there are lots of articles you can google too.)

Doh! Thank you.