Malware Could Have Played Part in Plane Crash

[nebun]

ok...why in the phuck was the airplane connected to the net??? this really boggles my mind...do the pilots need to surf the net while flying?

 

[iam2thecrowe]

even if its not connected to the net its not 100% secure. All it takes is 1 person to stick in their flash drive with som unknown malware on it. It could have even been a terrorist act.....makes me feel real safe flying now i know planes can be attacked by malware...

 

[welshmousepk]

It wasn't the plane that was affected. it was the monitoring system that was supposed to report on the plane. read the article.

 

[jsc]

welshmouse,
The monitoring system is on the aircraft, yes? Then the aircraft was attacked.

 

[nforce4max]

McADeath

 

[scook9]

They are very lucky it was only one plane effected.....

 

[descendency]

LOL @ All of the people who think they know what they are talking about with regards to computer security.

I'll tell you bluntly, ANY commercially available OS is EASILY hackable these days.

If you are going to design an airplane, it is very expensive to develop custom software for it (and test, and debug, and maintain, and everything else).

If 'hackers' get a hold of your security information (enough to create malware for it), it doesn't matter what OS you are running. You're just f***ed.

 

[pirateboy]

from script kiddie to mass murderer...congratulations

 

[toastninja17]

Jesus, it's just like something that would (but didn't happen) happen in live free or die hard

 

[bebangs]

1st - they are not using windows.
2nd - airplane's computer is not compatible with home or office OS.
3rd - i would be surprise if the systems is connected to the internet googling cameron diaz.

if this turn out to be true, this is premeditated.

 

[Guest]

154 people are dead. Is this really something to joke about?

 

[jj463rd]

[citation][nom]Spanky Deluxe[/nom]Why on Earth were they running Windows?? For this kind of thing a Unix based system would be a far more suitable choice.[/citation]
I never saw which operating system the central computer used.
It's not been disclosed at all yet.Wait till the facts come in.
It could very well be a Unix based OS as well.

 

[emjayy]

I saw this story a few days ago. This article's got the story sort of mixed up. In this accident, there were two warning systems that failed to work correctly - one on the ground and one inside the plane.

The trojan was found to have infected a MAINFRAME used by the Spanair airline to log all aircraft faults and automatically flag aircraft that needed to be grounded for repairs. This was a computer system that was on the ground in their headquarters. The craft that crashed had 3 faults logged against it that would have forced the airline to ground it. But the malware infestation (reportedly a trojan) prevented the software on the mainframe from working properly and it failed to red-flag the aircraft.

Unfortunately, one of the 3 faults in the aircraft was a failure of the circuitry that powers the Central Aural Warning System (CAWS), which is responsible for giving audible warnings when certain things go wrong in the plane or if the plane is incorrectly configured. Normally, that's the alarm system that would warn the pilots if they forget to lower the flaps and slats when putting the plane into takeoff configuration. Unfortunately, it seems the pilots forgot to lower the flaps on the worst possible day - when the CAWS which is there to prevent such a mishap was not working - so they didn't realize their error and the plane stalled as it was taking off (the video of the actual crash is on YouTube).

The plane crashed because of pilot error, but the trojan played a role by preventing the doomed aircraft with the flawed CAWS from being grounded in a timely manner, allowing the pilots to make the one error that they couldn't afford to make on that aircraft at that particular moment. What are the odds?

 

[alyoshka]

In 2008....... well, it would be more of a DOS based virus I think, esp when it comes to managing the aircraft systems.
Anyways, I could be wrong, but I think everything was Xp, xp,xp, xp then......
And such complex systems certainly do have customs software on them so it was either the virus which just got lucky or then a programming glitch in the particular set of hardware which malfunctioned.

 

[cdillon]

[citation][nom]Trueno07[/nom]Better question, why are they connected to the internet? I would think that everything should be kept local is possible for security's sake. If they can get malware they can get hacked.[/citation]

I doubt the system was connected to the Internet in any way. It is possible that a software developer's system was infected and it found its way into the final software product (although not likely, since that would have affected even more planes and we'd have heard about it), or a separate support/maintenance computer which was connected to this computer temporarily to perform maintenance caused it to be infected.

 

[Guest]

Hi guys,

This is happening in Spain, my country. To put things clear, "Spain is different". I can´t take this seriously. A malware prevented the "so specific not-windows application" to give warnings??? .... the real deal is that the investigators have no ******* idea of the real reasons or they know and want to cover then, but they found a log that says something similar to "BKSP.trojan detected" and the think :"VIRUSSS!!!!! That's the reason". Misinformation in Spain in the media is very common, and they use people lack of knowledge in Computers to give a really unreal reason for the accident. The real reasons are the lack of property in the plane revisions, that's all. A Trojan doesn't prevent an application from working correctly if the application is running and the trojan is not "specifically designed" to attack that application. Could be that the application was not running, but that's not a trojan problem, it is a human one.

 

[dthx]

This story has been widespread in the press but most of it is based on wrong assumptions !!!
The real cause of the crash is that the fuse of the system that rings an alarm when trying on the ground to apply engine power with the flaps/slats in the wrong configuration had been pulled out for maintenance purpose. The pilots skipped by mistake one line on their checklist when configuring the airplane for take-off (the one where they should extend the slats). They failed to verify that the flaps/slats were extended (there is a clear diagram, with leds displaying this information on the dashboard...they should have seen) and as the warning horn kept silent, they continued to roll :-S
The central computer in the company is used only for service planning / troubleshooting purpose but it is never constantly monitored in realtime. Even then, by the time an operator would have seen this warning about the wrong configuration for departure, he would never have been able to tell the crew in a timely fashion. A takeoff roll doesn't take minutes...

 

[swell9]

To all Windows haters, Unix is vulnerable to hacker attacks. I run a number of Unix-based servers and they require almost as much secuirty patching as Windows OS.

 

[mcnaugha]

This sounds like media hype nonsense. The aircraft does not rely on an external computer to sound an alarm when the flaps and slats are retracted prior to take off. It has an in-cockpit alarm for that. If it doesn't sound it's because it was either faulty or the pilot disengaged the fuse for it to deliberately silence it. Something some pilots are apparently in the habit of doing because the alarm can falsely sound in certain conditions. It is entirely pilot error when the flaps and slats are not extended because this is the fundamental necessity that gets the damn thing off the runway. Every pilot knows this. Flaps and slats should always be checked before take off. So unless they actuated them [they didn't move] and believed they were deployed, they didn't check them prior to starting the take off. It is highly unlikely that this occurred. It is highly likely they didn't check them and had the alarm turned off because it annoyed them.

BUT wasn't this the case where the engine was on fire during the take off? I didn't think the flaps and slats were to blame here.

 

[dthx]

[citation][nom]mcnaugha[/nom]BUT wasn't this the case where the engine was on fire during the take off? I didn't think the flaps and slats were to blame here.[/citation]
There was no engine fire in this case. According to the cockpit voice recorder, the crew forgot to set and check the flaps. They were interrupted by a radio call while they were in the middle of the checklist and they apparently resumed their checklist at the wrong place after that call.
The wing was in clean configuration (no slats/flaps, which can not work with the angle of attack required to lift an MD-80 off the ground). They were eventually able to take-off but as soon as the crew noticed a positive climb, as normally required, they retracted the landing gear. While this operation is good for the aerodynamics of the aircraft, it creates some additional drag for a few seconds when the main gear doors drop down to let the wheels enter their compartiment in the belly. This, combined to the fact that the aircraft had left the ground and no longer benefited of the ground effect that helps him floating caused it to enter a stall which, at a height that offers no room for recovering...