The Boeing 747-400 aircraft, first introduced in 1988, still receives critical software updates via a 3.5-inch diskette. The Register reports that security researchers at Pen Test Partners recently gained access to British Airways 747, after the airline decided to suspend its fleet following a drop in travel during a coronavirus outbreak. The team was able to inspect the entire avionic space under the passenger deck, with its modular black box rack, similar to a data center, performing different functions for aircraft.
Pen Test Partners found a 3.5-inch diskette drive in the cockpit, which is used to load important navigation databases. It is a database that must be updated every 28 days, and an engineer visits it every month with the latest updates.
While it may seem surprising that 3.5-inch diskettes are still used on airplanes today, many Boeing 737s have also used diskettes to load avionic software for years. The database available on this diskette is growing, according to a 2015 report by Aviation Today. Some airlines no longer use floppy disks, but others look forward to engineers visiting each month to sit down and load eight floppy disks with updates to airports, flight routes, runways and more.
The 10-minute 747 video tour (above) is a fascinating glimpse into parts of the aircraft you have never seen, especially on decades-old planes. The tour is part of this year’s Def Con virtual conference, the largest hacker conference in the United States. As modern airplanes rely on increasingly sophisticated technology, safety researchers are increasingly interested in how airplanes prevent passengers from interfering with flight.
Safety is closely related to aviation entertainment systems. A cyber security professor discovered the exploitation of a buffer overhead on a British Airways flight last year. Headmasters can use a USB mouse to insert text strings into an in-flight chat application, locking the entire in-flight entertainment system to its seat. Safety researchers are still looking for vulnerabilities that allow them to communicate with the flight system from the part of the aircraft that is accessible to the public.
Focus on safety is even more important in the latest aircraft. Modern aircraft such as the Boeing 777X and 787 use fiber networks, where all avionics are connected to this network and operated by a pair of computers running critical aviation software. This is more than the traditional network as you find in office buildings, and some of the latest airlines are even getting software updates over the air. However, software that supports modern aircraft is not always reliable. Boeing has just started production of the troublesome 737 Max aircraft after a software failure that resulted in two fatal accidents that killed a total of 346 passengers and crew.
While modern technology is available, it does not stop diskettes from surviving in other industries. The U.S. Department of Defense only ended the use of 8-inch diskettes to coordinate the country's nuclear power in October, and the International Space Station is full of diskettes.