When Your Personal Safety is Threathened by Hackers

When ZDNet reports Boeing 787 at risk of in-flight hacking, you start to worry about how your personal safety can sometimes be threatened by hackers. I wonder what was Boeing thinking about when they connected passenger Internet and entertainment networks to their on-board flight systems network. Professionals in the IT security circles already know how systems and applications must be designed with security from the start, how they need to be reviewed and audited, etc. I certainly hope aircraft manufacturers apply these principles in designing and building aircraft too!

Nowadays, so many things are driven by computers and networks. It is inevitable that IT security becomes a fundamental concern in any product or service. Already we hear horror stories about how terrorists in the Internet age can seize control of utility grids, telecommunication infrastructure, etc. Hopefully we don’t have to learn any lessons the painful way.

Not too long ago, while sitting in a Boeing 747 waiting to depart Changi Airport, I was reminded how dependent aircrafts have become on computers. To cut a long story short, the pilots could not get the fuel intake valve to open, and as a result, they still hadn’t taken in a single drop of jet fuel even when all passengers were already seated and ready for departure! (I am surprised there was no way to mechanically open it manually!)

The captain explained with some embarrassment that they were going to try the equivalent of “rebooting” the aircraft (yes, he really used the word “reboot”). It entailed shutting off power to the entire aircraft to power-cycle all the flight systems. We were asked to remain calm as the cabin became totally quiet and all the lights shut off (except for emergency lights that still worked). The flight eventually departed 3 hours later after a computer board was replaced.

How worrying it would be had a “reboot” been required mid flight!

It is also quite worrying how we are not able to build reliable and dependable computer systems. We have heard about trains colliding due to computer problems, telephone network crashing due to software errors, power grids shutting down due to computers… all these happening without terrorists playing a part. Can you imagine IT savvy terrorists helping to create chaos?