[PLUG-TALK] Aircraft vulnerabilities - shoot the messenger!

[Keith Lofstrom]

Chris Roberts has been trying to get the airlines to secure
their engine control computers (at least change the default
passwords!), without success.  Instead, they arrested him:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2015/05/18/hacker-chris-roberts-told-fbi-he-took-control-of-united-plane-fbi-claims/
http://tiny.cc/planehack

This may be the same crappy engine control software that turns
off the engines after 2^31/100 seconds.  Presumably that same
variable in memory is hackable, with far worse consequences
than a small flightpath deviation.

Note to FBI: The bad guys will quietly bring down thousands
of planes simultaneously, not send plaintive memos.  If you
don't allow software engineers to help you protect the US,
our country cannot survive the 21st century.

Keith

-- 
Keith Lofstrom          keithl at keithl.com