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Boeing 787 In Flight Entertainment System Security fun

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Re: Boeing 787 In Flight Entertainment System Security fun

#131

Post by bonzini »

mseebach wrote: post #82
zero_one_one wrote: post #68

There's a lot of posts mentioning that a scan shouldn't cause any trouble, however there's no way of knowing how the services are configured on the other end, or how they are set up to respond to certain packet types, or how the server will respond to certain data within those packets if said data does not conform to expected lengths etc. A lot of assumptions are made that non-conforming data will be ignored in a clo…

I remember about 20 years ago, you could crash any Windows computer you had the IP address of by sending a particularly crafted package to a certain port. Oh, those were the days.

Ah, SQL Slammer... Those were the days indeed! :-)

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/SQL_Slammer

Re: Boeing 787 In Flight Entertainment System Security fun

#132

Post by beefield »

nsxwolf wrote: post #126
tptacek wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It crashed due to faulty wiring in the IFE, which started an electrical fire. It could just as easily have been the coffee maker.

Well, imagine a fire due to faulty wiring that is accidentally triggered by some hack. Maybe absurd but not impossible. Why mess with any in-flight system?

Why do you assume that it is more likely the hack causes a fire instead of preventing a fire? I mean, I would think that the most likely individual outcome of a hack would be shutdown of the system, which should reduce the likelyhood of weird things happening.

Re: Boeing 787 In Flight Entertainment System Security fun

#133

Post by bonzini »

SAI_Peregrinus wrote: post #98
fragmede wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Optoisolators are a prolific and an extremely cheap electrical component that performs the "air-gap" functionality.

Electrical safety airgapping and information security airgapping are different, and entirely unrelated. If data can pass from one side to the other it's not airgapped (from an infosec perspective).

Fiber needs transmitter and receiver transducers. If each side has only one of those, data can literally flow only in one direction. So it's still infosec-airgapped in the other.

Re: Boeing 787 In Flight Entertainment System Security fun

#134

Post by greedo »

tptacek wrote: post #55
greedo wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This isn't a publicly accessible system like a webserver. This is an entertainment device on a plane.

It's not your intuition about the IFE hardware that's problematic; it's your intuition about the "publicly accessible system like a webserver".

I meant from a legal standpoint. Accessing an IFE from a personal device you take on an airplane will be viewed differently in court than running nmap on your laptop against a webserver hosted on AWS.

Re: Boeing 787 In Flight Entertainment System Security fun

#135

Post by bonzini »

ZanyProgrammer wrote: post #80
Test2123 wrote: post #62

Beside a scan is good or bad, how would they go about finding the source? There wont be an IT officr at landing collecting logs/mac address from any wireless card. I've scanned those systems many times and nothing ever happened - i am just pointing out to the issue that catching a real attacker it is hard not just technically but in practice

Also, don't use a typical *nix terminal that looks all hackerish (black background, green font, something like that). Someone non technical is bound to notice that, even if out of the corner of their eye.

Actually my experience is that fellow passengers were often intrigued by all the colors on the screen (from your usual syntax highlighting) rather than worried by the dark background!

Unfortunately nowadays "Arabic" is what worries people, even if that turns out to mathematical notation. [1]

[1] https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/may/07/professor-fl...

Re: Boeing 787 In Flight Entertainment System Security fun

#136

Post by zero_one_one »

alkonaut wrote: post #125
zero_one_one wrote: post #68

There's a lot of posts mentioning that a scan shouldn't cause any trouble, however there's no way of knowing how the services are configured on the other end, or how they are set up to respond to certain packet types, or how the server will respond to certain data within those packets if said data does not conform to expected lengths etc. A lot of assumptions are made that non-conforming data will be ignored in a clo…

Irresponsible and stupid perhaps, but a lot of exaggeration here too. I'd say the absolute worst case scenario is that the IFE crashes and must be restarted. Not a great result but not a plane crash and not a 10h flight without IFE either.

I'm not sure that there's any exaggeration in my post - I didn't mention any overblown outcomes that could result from these sort of actions, purely the considerations that weren't taken into account before the action was taken. I may not be seeing the wood for the trees though - it's been one of those days at work today! :)

Re: Boeing 787 In Flight Entertainment System Security fun

#137

Post by emodendroket »

0xffff2 wrote: post #119
emodendroket wrote: post #71

I'm not too keen on the idea that I'm now supposed to watch on a laptop. If I wanted to go to that kind of trouble I wouldn't be confining myself to whatever crap was on the in-flight entertainment system in the first place.

I'm not too keen on having a screen I don't control ( and never use anyway) in front of me for an entire flight. I hate being shown ads, and the only place I still regularly encounter them are airplane IFE systems I can't turn off during certain phases of the flight, and poorly chosen gas stations. Interestingly neither of those used to be significant sources of advertising.

I've never seen one that couldn't be turned off.

Re: Boeing 787 In Flight Entertainment System Security fun

#138

Post by alkonaut »

zero_one_one wrote: post #136
alkonaut wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Irresponsible and stupid perhaps, but a lot of exaggeration here too. I'd say the absolute worst case scenario is that the IFE crashes and must be restarted. Not a great result but not a plane crash and not a 10h flight without IFE either.

I'm not sure that there's any exaggeration in my post - I didn't mention any overblown outcomes that could result from these sort of actions, purely the considerations that weren't taken into account before the action was taken. I may not be seeing the wood for the trees though - it's been one of those days at work today! :)

Oh I didn't mean your post in particular containing exaggerations, more that there is generally a lot of talk here insinuating plane crashes or other catastrophic side effects coming from port scans.

The other almost-catastrophic outcome is apparently that the IFE system would not just crash, but be bricked in a state where it couldn't be restarted. Not impossible, but not likely either.

People switch seats in planes without asking the staff. That's also irresponsible and dangerous, and the worst case scenario is a crash. This is about the same level of risk if you ask me.

Re: Boeing 787 In Flight Entertainment System Security fun

#139

Post by tlb »

AnimalMuppet wrote: post #100
tlb wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Lots of things have faulty wiring, but they keep working as long as their power draw is under some limit. Drawing excess power is a common result of software going into an infinite loop, which is a possible outcome of security probes. Half the bugs I notice in Chrome, I notice because my laptop fan starts running.

Sure. Hair dryers draw excess power when you drop them in a bathtub. Ground-fault protection outlets are supposed to prevent that. If they don't, the outlet is faulty . The origin of Murphy's Law was in a rocket sled project. This guy was strapped onto a rocket sled, fired down a track, and then subjected to strong braking forces. "If anything can go wrong, it will go wrong" didn't just mean "stuff happens". It meant…

"More than 21-percent of GFCI circuit breakers and 19-percent of GFCI Receptacles tested did not provide ground fault protection. The failure rate in areas of high-lightening strike was as high as 57 percent ... when a GFCI device fails, it continues to pass electric current but no longer protects the unsuspecting homeowner from ground fault conditions." (From http://www.experts123.com/a/the-national-electrical-code-gro...)

And read this before dropping your hair dryer in the bathtub: https://iaeimagazine.org/magazine/2010/01/16/the-illusion-of...

Re: Boeing 787 In Flight Entertainment System Security fun

#140

Post by mulmen »

bonzini wrote: post #130
_0w8t wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is this still true with 787? [1] indicates that it uses virtual links that are not physically separated. [1] - https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/ARINC_429

The protection lies between that bus and the TCP/IP stack of the IFE. Data can go one way, and several feet of certification documents are there to ensure that.

A stack of paper on the ground is of little comfort to me in the sky. If there is a physical (TCP/IP!) connection between two systems there is a potential for communication between them. No amount of certification will ever make that as secure as an air gap.
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