Hacker Says He Can Break Into Airplane Systems Using In-Flight Wi-Fi

Re:Hacker Says He Can Break Into Airplane Systems Using In-F... by ChrisClark on Wednesday August 06, 2014 @12:15AM (#8140960)

During an international Air Canada flight, they had USB ports right beside the touch screen seat back monitors. I thought I'd try plugging my remote mouse into it. Worked perfectly fine, a mouse pointer showed up and I could use it fine.

I was wondering what I could do with a keyboard, or a nicely crafted USB stick. The interface seems to be an HTML/JS interface, so I'm not sure what OS it was running on. The mouse pointer was not a Windows default so it was probably Linux.

I wonder if I could have switched terminals if I had my keyboard. Also, if I had my keyboard I'd be too scared to try.

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Re:Hacker Says He Can Break Into Airplane Systems Using In-F... by kenrikm on Wednesday August 06, 2014 @12:31AM (#8140995)

Some Delta planes and I think all Virgin planes that have that inflight infotainment system run on a flavor of linux with a ton of plugins and insecure SSH enabled by default. Ask me how I know.

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Re:Hacker Says He Can Break Into Airplane Systems Using In-F... by dandruffhead on Wednesday August 06, 2014 @12:49AM (#8141061)

How?

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Re:Hacker Says He Can Break Into Airplane Systems Using In-F... by kalleboo on Wednesday August 06, 2014 @08:52AM (#8142188)

Singapore Airlines IFE rebooting the Linux kernel https://www.flickr.com/photos/kalleboo/2473197800/

Running StarOffice https://www.flickr.com/photos/kalleboo/2473197320

Thai Airways entertainment system rebooting Linux (with the penguin logo visible) https://www.flickr.com/photos/kalleboo/3911989854/

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Re:Hacker Says He Can Break Into Airplane Systems Using In-F... by blueskin_ on Wednesday August 06, 2014 @04:23AM (#8141545)

Flew on a 787 recently, they had a problem with the IFE system and rebooted it; it's Linux. Recognised the default X11 cursor straight away and was even able to move it around with my touchscreen before it disappeared and their UI came up.

That plane had a USB port by each screen too; I didn't have any peripherals to test if it interfaced though.

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Re:Hacker Says He Can Break Into Airplane Systems Using In-F... by xerophtye on Wednesday August 06, 2014 @03:23AM (#8141425)

I remember once the screen in front of me crashed and clearly booted up some flavour of linux. (it even displayed the penguin!) Oh and i think it did end up on a console... though there were no USB ports visible at the time

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Re:Hacker Says He Can Break Into Airplane Systems Using In-F... by contingencies on Wednesday August 06, 2014 @04:33AM (#8141567)

I've seen this too.

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