Flying airliners could be the latest victims of cyber attacks, it has been claimed.
A cyber security consultant has claimed cyber criminals could use newly-created software to hack into the sophisticated systems controlling commercial airliners and then fly them remotely.
Ty Miller from Pure Hacking told the Asia-Pacific Aviation Security Conference in Hong Kong that "the stereotypical Die Hard 2 airport attack, where aircraft controls can be taken over, is no longer just a movie script".
Miller claimed that "depending on what information was accessed... the control of the aircraft themselves could be compromised".
Miller, whose so-called 'ethical hacking' firm tests the vulnerabilities of networks by trying to hack into them, said that a recent exercise had seen him being able to pose as an airline employee and eventually take over the airline's network giving them full access to the system and "potentially sensitive documents".
Miller said that theoretically a team of hackers could work together to exploit network security and then sabotage systems, just as in the Stuxnet virus attack on an Iranian nuclear power station last year.
"You could deal with planes so that when they're in the air they all of a sudden start dumping all of their fuel, or force the planes to take a nose-dive," claimed Miller. "And it's not necessarily one plane — it could be a whole fleet of planes."
"To compromise the avionics of an aircraft, hackers would have to have the same level of information and potentially need to hack into Boeing, the specific airline and the airport systems," said Miller.
For this reason, Miller said the actual risk of such an attack is very low.
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