Cyberhijacking Airplanes: Truth or Fiction?

Architecture and Background

Cyberhijacking Airplanes: Truth or Fiction? Dr. Phil Polstra ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR OF DIGITAL FORENSICS, BLOOMSBURG UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA Captain Polly ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR OF AVIATION, UNIVERSITY OF DUBUQUE There have been several people making bold claims about the ability to remotely hack into aircraft and hijack them from afar. This talk will take a systematic look at the mechanisms others are claiming would permit such cyberhijacking. Each of the most popular techniques will be examined myth buster style. Along the way several important aircraft technologies will be examined in detail.

Vulnerability Analysis

Attendees will leave with a better understanding of ADS-B, ADS-A, ACARS, GPS, transponders, collision avoidance systems, autopilots, and avionics networking and communications. No prior knowledge is assumed for attendees. The primary presenter is a pilot, flight instructor, aviation professor, aircraft mechanic, aircraft inspector, avionics technician, and plane builder who has also worked on the development of some of the avionics systems found in modern airliners. The second presenter is a former airline pilot with thousands of hours in airliners who is currently an aviation professor in charge of a simulator program. Phil was born at an early age. He cleaned out his savings at age 8 in order to buy a TI99-4A computer for the sum of $450.

Exploitation and Demonstrations

Two years later he learned 6502 assembly and has been hacking computers and electronics ever since. Dr. Phil currently works as a professor of digital forensics. His research focus over the last few years has been on the use of micro controllers and small embedded computers for forensics and pentesting. Phil has developed a custom pentesting Linux distro and related hardware to allow an inexpensive army of remote pentesting drones to be built using the BeagleBone Black computer boards. This work is described in detail in Phil's book "Hacking and Penetration Testing With Low Power Devices" (Syngress, 2014).

Remediation and Defensive Strategies

Prior to entering academia, Phil held several high level positions at well-known US companies. He holds a couple of the usual certs one might expect for someone in his position. Phil is also an accomplished aviator with several thousand hours of flight time. He holds 12 ratings including instructor, commerical pilot, mechanic, inspector, and avionics tech. When not working, he likes to spend time with his family, fly, hack electronics, and has been known to build airplanes. twitter: @ppolstra facebook: Captain Polly is a former airline pilot at a major US airline. She is currently an Associate Professor of Aviation at a private midwestern university. Polly has thousands of hours of flight time in airliners and small aircraft. She runs a simulator program that includes a number of airliner simulators.