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A Boeing Code Leak Exposes Security Flaws Deep in a 787's Guts

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Re: A Boeing Code Leak Exposes Security Flaws Deep in a 787's Guts

#141

Post by MFLoon »

mentos wrote: post #132
sushisource wrote: post #3

It seems insane that all this code isn't just open source by default. No one's going to be able to rip off airlines by stealing it, you still need to have a company that, you know, sells planes. Keeping it closed seems like a full admission that "there are probably a bunch of bugs in here and we don't want people to see them"

Yea I wonder if they could partner with Microsoft Flight Sim and find bugs in their code from thousands of simulated player hours.

Not that Microsoft Flight Sim or X-Plane aren't awesome and relatively high fidelity simulators, but I don't think that's a feasible QA loop, as a) they're not simulating all flight systems on a 1:1 basis, b) even if they did have a fully to spec simulation of the flight control software, it's still insufficient because the real thing runs on specialized hardware, which is not being simulated in flight sims of this tier, and most importantly c) the external environmental inputs are also being simulated so it would be of limited value.

Re: A Boeing Code Leak Exposes Security Flaws Deep in a 787's Guts

#142

Post by linuxftw »

ummonk wrote: post #52
sushisource wrote: post #3

It seems insane that all this code isn't just open source by default. No one's going to be able to rip off airlines by stealing it, you still need to have a company that, you know, sells planes. Keeping it closed seems like a full admission that "there are probably a bunch of bugs in here and we don't want people to see them"

Given that airplanes haven’t been hacked yet, security by obscurity seems to have been working...

Lack of evidence of hacking is not evidence of lack of hacking.

Re: A Boeing Code Leak Exposes Security Flaws Deep in a 787's Guts

#143

Post by upofadown »

icebraining wrote: post #115
alltakendamned wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Data diodes. Call me when you bypass them, I have a job for you.

Data dioses don't prevent malicious data that exploits vulnerabilities and takes over from being transmitted, they only prevent the malware from communicating back.

But if you are on the side that receives... Which would be the case here, wouldn't it?

Re: A Boeing Code Leak Exposes Security Flaws Deep in a 787's Guts

#144

Post by TheSoftwareGuy »

MegaButts wrote: post #4

I feel like this is the kind of thing that would've been completely ignored by everybody except for a handful of concerned hackers had it not been for the recent media outrage against Boeing (and in my opinion absolutely deserved). I guess the question is how bad is it (from the article it's hard to tell exactly, but it sure doesn't sound great)? And another question is how many of our systems that we rely on, from b…

>how many of our systems that we rely on, from bridges to traffic lights, are just actually very insecure but either nobody notices or nobody exploits them

I write software that is critical for public safety customers (think police/firefighters). Maybe this is just my perspective having left a defense company but it is terribly insecure. The “secure” version of our product was obviously an after thought, it was poorly executed and i dont think it’s even used widely. And my company dominates this market, so the attack surface is huge

Re: A Boeing Code Leak Exposes Security Flaws Deep in a 787's Guts

#145

Post by nicoburns »

winter_blue wrote: post #133
fdhfqbu wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've done security auditing of ADA and C avionics code. (including for DAL-A components). As a language, I'd take Rust any day (in terms of security/robustness properties). However, the rust/LLVM compiler pipeline is nowhere near mature enough for use in high-criticality environments.

> However, the rust/LLVM compiler pipeline is nowhere near mature enough for use in high-criticality environments. I don't know about Rust, but LLVM isn't mature? Nearly ever program running in the Apple ecosystem was compiled using LLVM. Swift is compiled using LLVM. Since Xcode 4.2, Clang is the default compiler. So iOS and macOS apps are built with LLVM. I'd also wager a guess that Apple uses Clang to compile key…

Not mission-critical, must-never-fail mature, no. All of these systems contain tens (if not thousands of bugs), some of these probably come from compiler issues sometimes.

Re: A Boeing Code Leak Exposes Security Flaws Deep in a 787's Guts

#146

Post by tonfa »

winter_blue wrote: post #133
fdhfqbu wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've done security auditing of ADA and C avionics code. (including for DAL-A components). As a language, I'd take Rust any day (in terms of security/robustness properties). However, the rust/LLVM compiler pipeline is nowhere near mature enough for use in high-criticality environments.

> However, the rust/LLVM compiler pipeline is nowhere near mature enough for use in high-criticality environments. I don't know about Rust, but LLVM isn't mature? Nearly ever program running in the Apple ecosystem was compiled using LLVM. Swift is compiled using LLVM. Since Xcode 4.2, Clang is the default compiler. So iOS and macOS apps are built with LLVM. I'd also wager a guess that Apple uses Clang to compile key…

I don't think consumer OSes are considered highly critical.

(Unlike code running for avionics for example)

Re: A Boeing Code Leak Exposes Security Flaws Deep in a 787's Guts

#147

Post by shakna »

winter_blue wrote: post #133
fdhfqbu wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've done security auditing of ADA and C avionics code. (including for DAL-A components). As a language, I'd take Rust any day (in terms of security/robustness properties). However, the rust/LLVM compiler pipeline is nowhere near mature enough for use in high-criticality environments.

> However, the rust/LLVM compiler pipeline is nowhere near mature enough for use in high-criticality environments. I don't know about Rust, but LLVM isn't mature? Nearly ever program running in the Apple ecosystem was compiled using LLVM. Swift is compiled using LLVM. Since Xcode 4.2, Clang is the default compiler. So iOS and macOS apps are built with LLVM. I'd also wager a guess that Apple uses Clang to compile key…

LLVM is still in disagreement as to whether or not infinite loops are UB [1], and others.

It is becoming more mature... But the argument about how to handle an empty infinite loop has been going on since 2015.

[1] https://bugs.llvm.org/show_bug.cgi?id=24078

Re: A Boeing Code Leak Exposes Security Flaws Deep in a 787's Guts

#148

Post by brokenmachine »

jdavis703 wrote: post #134
MegaButts wrote: post #4

I feel like this is the kind of thing that would've been completely ignored by everybody except for a handful of concerned hackers had it not been for the recent media outrage against Boeing (and in my opinion absolutely deserved). I guess the question is how bad is it (from the article it's hard to tell exactly, but it sure doesn't sound great)? And another question is how many of our systems that we rely on, from b…

I can tell you traffic lights are extremely insecure. Last month there was a traffic light that was turned the wrong way, such that it was impossible to tell if the light was green. So I climbed the poll and turned it to the right direction. Another fellow pedastrian thanked me. A bad actor could do anything from a DOS (positioning it the wrong direction) to tampering with the bulbs (for example swapping out all the…

All the traffic lights here in Australia are honking great big metal poles that you'd need some serious equipment to reposition. Swapping bulbs would be a big operation too.

What country are you in that has rotatable traffic lights?

Re: A Boeing Code Leak Exposes Security Flaws Deep in a 787's Guts

#149

Post by MFLoon »

sushisource wrote: post #3

It seems insane that all this code isn't just open source by default. No one's going to be able to rip off airlines by stealing it, you still need to have a company that, you know, sells planes. Keeping it closed seems like a full admission that "there are probably a bunch of bugs in here and we don't want people to see them"

I'm very pro OSS, but I don't think this actually makes sense. Other open source, non-free software is usually a general purpose piece of software expected to be licensed out to many users and run in a variety of environments, for a variety of use cases. The flight control software on a 787, on the other hand, has one intended end user (who is also the owner), runs in one rigidly controlled environment, with a fixed set of use cases. There's no benefit to the public domain, and avionics is such a specialized discipline that the set of people capable of doing useful error or vulnerability analysis on the software probably highly overlaps with the people Boeing is paying to do said analysis in a private capacity (as they're mandated to by regulations anyway). I just don't think getting a bunch of eyes of random, generalist security researchers on it would meaningfully improve the safety and security of the planes.

Re: A Boeing Code Leak Exposes Security Flaws Deep in a 787's Guts

#150

Post by throw7 »

p_l wrote: post #79
throw7 wrote: post #14

...an FAA spokesperson wrote in a statement to WIRED that it's "satisfied with the manufacturer’s assessment of the issue." Can't help but read this as: "We don't have a clue and depend on the manufacturer to tell us everything is 5 by 5."

Separation of IFE and avionics networks is something FAA actually chastised Boeing over during 787 design, and forced them to fully separate networks not VLAN crap.

Thanks for that.

It sounds like the networks, while not air gapped, are being separated by some "high" security design or device... that happened to withstand the attack (hence the testing on Boeing's part). Fair enough?

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