Popular Mechanics: The F-35's Greatest Vulnerability Isn't Enemy Weapons. It's Being Hacked.
The high-tech fighter can hide from radar, but hackers are a different matter.
The F-35 Lightning II can evade radar while infiltrating enemy airspace to deliver a knockout blow. It's a sophisticated, stealthy fighter with one big vulnerability—being hacked. As the plane finally reaches full production, the Air Force is racing to plug holes that could allow hackers to exploit the jet's connected systems—with disastrous results.
The aircraft itself is pretty secure. As Air Force Times explains, there are multiple layers of security surrounding the jet, including PIN numbers for individual pilots and secure authentication in crafting mission packages for uploading into the aircraft computer. A faraway hacker could not, for example, start up the aircraft and force its engine to explode, or cause the airplane to roll off the runway and crash.
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WNU Editor: I am sure that the F-35's operating system and code cannot be hacked unless there is a direct connection that someone can put in malicious code .... and that is after studying the millions of lines of code that is behind the F-35's software. The other way is to intercept communications and spoof the system (such as how the Iranians fooled a U.S. drone in Afghanistan to fly to Iran). But I suspect that on the F-35 there are counter-measures to this.
2 comments:
This concern has been aired countless times in the past by the press. The jet has demonstrated outstanding flying and combat capabilities so it is mind boggling to think those same brilliant designers failed to anticipate all the hacking vulnerabilities their design offers. The major worry is the sourcing of all the computer chips. Can they be 100% sure they weren't sourced in China or otherwise compromised during the supply chain from foundry to jet?
Anon, please allow me to introduce myself; I am a member, a rare member, of the human race. We are they who are a software designer's worst nightmare. We inadvertently expose the hidden flaw.
Today I exposed the US government's sign up page for buying treasury bills. And the icing on the cake this morning was getting Allstate Insurance's "sign up for paperless billing" to acknowledge that they didn't "accept credit or debit cards at this time" when I attempted to update my credit card number. That they accepted the original card number was apparently irrelevant. Nonetheless, being a person with the tenacity needed to [unknowingly] overwhelm the best laid plans of mice and software programmers, The Computing Machine soon recognized with whom it was dealing and capitulated, accepting my update and without triggering the smoke alarm in my cabin. The above anecdotes actually occurred today though I do acknowledge a bit of embellishment; I do not have a smoke alarm.
This situation is why the Air Force will not allow we rare ones near airshows that display the F-35 if it is going to give a flying demonstration. So despite all the man hours devoted to the f-35's software, and I fully concur with your statement that the F-35's program has seen extensive input, there COULD be a flaw thus the continued speculation in the press that the F-35 could be hackable.
Life is hell in the digital age, but we rare ones persevere.
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