Hacking the Sky
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This article originally appeared in The Technology Issue of APEX Experience.
Speaking on an International Conference on Consumer Electronics panel previewing tech trends of the next five years, Dr. Scott Linfoot, senior research systems engineer for MASS Consultants Ltd., pegged cyber-security as a key concern. After speaking with security consultants and hackers (a bit of overlap there) about networked technology, he declared, “Security is currently viewed in that domain as a joke.”
APEX technical director Bryan Rusenko responded: “I am of the opinion that our industry should take more seriously the thought of a hacker opening up a seat partway and tapping into a physical network. I think people would be curious about doing that simply to relieve the boredom on a long flight.”
The more devices networked, the greater the payoff for a hacker: Linfoot warned that a weakness in one networked device would compromise the entire network. A cabin full of interconnected devices, then, equals heightened exposure to risk.
Linfoot cited the case of former US vice-president Dick Cheney, who had the wireless capabilities of his pacemaker deactivated so nobody could hack his heart. But there are several ways to maintain security in a more vulnerable world, Linfoot elaborated, such as adaptive security that changes over time, and device DNA, which allows communication only with specifically trusted partner-objects.
“I am of the opinion that our industry should take more seriously the thought of a hacker opening up a seat partway and tapping into a physical network.” – Bryan Rusenko
Michael Childers, chair of the APEX Technology Committee, said that Hollywood studios are particularly worried about piracy in a wireless-IFEC (in-flight entertainment and communications) environment, saving their newest content for IFEC systems that are solely controlled by the airline. Systems that allow your iPad to show movies end up with older fare.
Technology such as Toshiba’s TransferJet may be explored as an in-cabin option. Using Near Field Communications technology, which facilitates contactless exchanges between devices, a passenger would use TransferJet to transfer larger chunks of data (such as video or a digital in-flight magazine), interacting only with her own IFEC unit, and not with the entire cabin’s network. The result would be a series of one-way conversations, rather than a massive group-chat of passenger- and airline-owned devices.
Childers says that any IFEC content should be encrypted, adding, “Streaming, of course, is inherently more secure than downloading,” since a pirate would have to scrape streamed content frame by frame. Key management – the management of the encryption and decryption keys that are used to lock and unlock content files – is also crucial, he adds.
Balancing security requirements with passenger expectations means that we must first understand those requirements. Linfoot said, “Security needs to be the primary building-block for devices, and should not be an afterthought.”