Can airplanes be hacked with an Android app?

[Jazzy]

Can you hack into an airplane using an app on your Android smartphone? That's what one man claimed during a demonstration at a conference in Amsterdam this week.

At the Hack in the Box security conference, Hugo Teso, a security researcher at the German IT consulting firm N.Runs, hacked into a simulated aircraft system using an Android app. According to Forbes, Teso claims he is able to send data to commercial aircraft -- like those made by Honeywell, Thales and Rockwell Collins -- exploit bugs in flight management software and send radio signals to planes to execute commands including those changing altitude, speed or direction. Teso has not disclosed what vulnerabilities he claims to have found in the code.

In his presentation, Teso used an Android application to redirect a virtual aircraft by tapping on a map on his smartphone, Forbes reports. He claims that a protocol called Aircraft Communications Addressing and Report System (ACARS) has no security, and that an airplane cannot tell if the messages it receives are valid or not.

Full article with video

Wouldn't the phone need a wireless connection directly to the airplane?

 

[Evil Eye]

Sort of, if I'm reading this right, planes are receiving data all the time. If he can then broadcast something else on the same frequency it should be possible to sort of substitute incoming data. Should be pretty hard though.