Did passenger control plane by hacking into its computer? FBI probes Twitter claims
A cybersecurity consultant who claims he hacked onto airline computer systems while on board as a passenger and once briefly controlled a plane is being investigated by the FBI.
Federal court documents say Twitter posts by Chris Roberts alerted the authorities to his claimed ability to hack into the onboard entertainment system. He told agents he attached an Ethernet cable with a modified connector to his laptop and to the electronic box underneath his seat for the entertainment system, CNN reports.
In interviews with the FBI earlier this year, Roberts said he had hacked into airline systems at least 15 times between 2011 and 2014, documents filed in Syracuse, New York, say. (A United Airlines flight Roberts took to Syracuse is a focus of the investigation.)
At one point, by overwriting code, Roberts “stated that he thereby caused one of the airplane engines to climb resulting in a lateral or sideways movement of the plane during one of these flights,” says a filed search warrant application.
Through attorney Andrew Crocker of the Electronic Frontier Foundation, Roberts provided a written statement to CNN: “Over last 5 years my only interest has been to improve aircraft security. Given the current situation I’ve been advised against saying more.”
A Wired article links to a copy of the search warrant application (PDF).
Related coverage:
Wired: “Hacker’s Tweet Reignites Ugly Battle Over Security Holes”
