Garmin tackles 'misinformation' on hacking aircraft avionics

[InfoSec News <alerts () infosecnews org>]

http://www.aopa.org/News-and-Video/All-News/2014/June/18/Garmin-tackles-misinformation-on-hacking-aircraft-avionics.aspx

By AOPA ePublishing staff
June 18, 2014

With much publicity the past several months focusing on hacking and 
security breaches—in the media, TV shows, and movies—Garmin is setting the 
record straight on the myths around one such possible breach: hacking 
aircraft avionics.

Garmin, an industry leader in aviation avionics, said in a blog posted 
June 17 that avionics manufacturers take numerous measures to ensure that 
avionics are safe and secure for pilots to use.

Garmin said that its software runs on proprietary operating systems “that 
would make it much more difficult to successfully accomplish an attack,” 
and that “proprietary protocols, data input validations, and other 
mitigations are in place to prevent viruses or malware from infecting, or 
affecting, our equipment.”

In addition, avionics manufacturers perform safety assessments on what 
could happen in an aircraft if the avionics data were corrupted, 
deliberately or not, and then develop mitigations for those possibilities 
before they go through equipment certification. And, all avionics are able 
to be overridden by the pilot, if he or she determines the aircraft is not 
doing what was intended. In many cases, pilots also must validate that 
their flight plan information is uploaded correctly and accept it before 
using it for active navigation. These actions help prevent input mistakes 
by the pilot as well as enhance security.

[...]

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