SAN FRANCISCO
Airline industry experts are responding Monday as the FBI investigates whether a cybersecurity expert was able to hack into an airplane’s computer system via the in-flight wireless Internet.
“While these systems receive position data and have communication links, the design isolates them from the other systems on airplanes performing critical and essential functions”, aircraft manufacturer Boeing said in a statement.
Programmer Chris Roberts was flying April 15 from Denver to Chicago when he tweeted a joke about hacking into the plane’s computer system and taking control of the aircraft’s functions.
“Find myself on a 737/800, lets see Box-IFE-ICE-SATCOM, ?” Roberts posted on Twitter. “Shall we start playing with EICAS messages? "PASS OXYGEN ON" Anyone ? :)”
When Roberts arrived in Chicago, FBI authorities detained and questioned him for four hours and also confiscated his computer, iPad and digital storage devices.
A search warrant the FBI submitted to a federal court in New York claims Roberts told agents he had successfully hacked into in-flight entertainment systems between 15 and 20 times from 2011 and 2014.
The affidavit claims that Roberts said he was even able to override flight controls and cause planes to drift sideways.
“He stated that he successfully commanded the system he had accessed to issue the 'CLB' or climb command”, according to the FBI investigation. “He stated that he thereby caused one of the airplane engines to climb resulting in a lateral or sideways movement of the plane during one of these flights".
Roberts claims that he performed the hackings only to showcase major vulnerabilities in the computer systems used on commercial aircraft.
“Over last 5 years my only interest has been to improve aircraft security ... given the current situation I've been advised against saying much,” Roberts tweeted Saturday.
