Why hackers won't be able to hijack your next flight - the facts
Two seasoned pilots, one of whom is a published hacking expert, have been puncturing some of the myths about aircraft hacking at Defcon 22.
Dr. Phil Polstra, professor of digital forensics at Bloomberg University (and a qualified commercial pilot and flight instructor) and "Captain Polly," professor of aviation at the University of Dubuque, explained that there are some very simple reasons why aircraft can't be digitally hijacked.
Firstly, no commercial airliner's avionics systems can be accessed from from either the entertainment system or in-flight Wi-Fi. Avionics systems are also never wireless, but always wired, and don't even use standard TCP/IP to communicate. Commercial aircraft networks use a variety of standards for data traffic, all derived from Ethernet but all subtly different in a way that would give hackers a very tough time.
