This Coin-Sized Device Can Hack a Boeing 737

Security researchers found that in less than 60 seconds, they could open a hatch on a plane’s exterior, plug in a tiny device, and redirect the aircraft’s autopilot or sabotage its flight plan. Even as the digital components of so many life-critical systems have proven susceptible to cybersabotage—cars, medical devices, even water utilities and power grids—the computer systems of airplanes have, thankfully, remained uniquely inaccessible to hackers. But one group of academic researchers has spent years testing a different, devious approach to aviation cybersecurity. Perhaps, they suggest, a plane could be hacked the same way that spies and saboteurs have targeted other high-value, offline computers: by surreptitiously gaining physical access to one and plugging in a device designed to silently run the attackers' malicious code.

Source: wired.com