In an age of hackable home electronics and cars, it is easy to overlook warnings about vulnerabilities. An article in the Washington Post, however, revealed a new danger that is concerning to those in the cybersecurity field and beyond: vulnerabilities in F-15 military jets.
Ethical hackers at the recent Def Con cybersecurity conference attempted to probe the systems of the F-15 for weaknesses using malware and even screwdrivers, according to Washington Post correspondent Joseph Marks, who covered the event.
The hackers found issues with the security of the Trusted Aircraft Information Download Station, some of which had already been identified previously. “There are millions of lines of code that are in all of our aircraft and if there’s one of them that’s flawed, then a country that can’t build a fighter to shoot down that aircraft might take it out with just a few keystrokes,” Will Roper, identified in the article as the Air Force’s top acquisition official, told The Washington Post. These issues could also extend to systems used in the private sector.
Roper hopes to use this experiment to perform more hands on testing in future conferences, including the ground control system for an operational military satellite, reported Marks. “We want to bring this community to bear on real weapons systems and real airplanes,” Roper told The Post. “And if they have vulnerabilities, it would be best to find them before we go into conflict.”
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