Risky Business #372 -- Airbus pilot talks plane hacking

How would a pilot respond to a hacked plane?
02 Jul 2015 » Risky Business

This week's feature interview is a bit left of field With all the talk about plane hacking flying around over the last couple of months (zing) I thought it might be an idea to talk to an actual airliner pilot. So this week we're joined by an Australian Airbus pilot. He works for an Asian airline but he was in Australia recently and I caught up with him to ask him for his thoughts on the topic.

As you'll hear, there's a bit more to an Airbus than it just being a flying computer. It's more like a flying computer warehouse with multiple redundant systems. Our anonymous pilot says stopping a hacker on a plane might be as simple as just killing power to the cabin with the flick of a switch -- BUT, he says there are no procedures or training around troubleshooting for malicious attackers and in such a heavily process-oriented environment that could cause problems.

This week's show is brought to you by our friends at Tenable Network Security, big thanks to them! Tenable's very own Marcus Ranum will be along in this week's sponsor interview to talk about detection concepts. He pulls on his grumpy pants and doles out some stone-cold old school advice for people out there building networks. That's a fun one.

Adam Boileau, as usual, joins us to discuss the week's security news.

Links to everything can be found in this week's show notes.

Links to everything are in this week's show notes.

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