Wireless attacks on aircraft instrument landing systems
Wireless attacks on aircraft instrument landing systems Sathaye et al., USENIX Security Symposium 2019
It’s been a while since we last looked at security attacks against connected real-world entities (e.g., industrial machinery, light-bulbs, and cars). Today’s paper is a good reminder of just how important it is becoming to consider cyber threat models in what are primary physical systems, especially if you happen to be flying on an aeroplane – which I am right now as I write this!
The first fully operational Instrument Landing System (ILS) for planes was deployed in 1932. But assumptions we’ve been making since then (and until the present day, it appears!) no longer hold:
Security was never considered by design as historically the ability to transmit and receive wireless signals required considerable resources and knowledge. However, the widespread availability of powerful and low-cost software-defined radio platforms has altered the threat landscape. In fact, today the majority of wireless systems employed in modern aviation have been shown to be vulnerable to some form of cyber-physical attacks.
Both sections 1 and 6 in the paper give some eye-opening details of known attacks against aviation systems, but to date no-one Continue reading
