Trojan Computer Malware Contributed to Fatal Plane Crash

reply to post by Romekje


Star for you. Certainly an interesting take on it. I like how your mind works.

I think we should check up on Spanish news in the future to see any progress of Internet restrictions in the country. Or if there are any cyber related incidents in the coming weeks. Possibly even backdated ones.

Originally posted by Big Raging Loner
NowThen and Fred T your comments I find quite a scary prospect. Are we basically talking about the deliberate infiltration of the airports communication system? As the likelihood of a Trojan entering by chance is tantamount to impossible?

Well I'm sure it's not impossible...

But air travel it THE most highly scrutinised form of transport going (unless I'm missing one) - EVERY mistake is played over and over again... It's why we know more about air accidents than we do about tripping over paving slabs.

But I will point out that systems are fallible, if ever there has been a lesson of modern times it is that humans... and hence the systems they create are never perfect, you may be surprised when the banking system goes down, you may be surprised when a whole aircraft carrier is suddenly vulnerable to a Cesna and a hand grenade - the problem is we can't ever understand a system in it's entirety any more... A captain may have a good overview, but does he understand the massive complexity of the software in his iPhone?? Course not.

reply to post by Now_Then


I worry about that sort of thing on a personal level. Like I wouldn't even know where to begin with fixing errors on my computer I certainly don't understand the different codes and classifications. I have only recently learned how to effectively alter registry entries that don't belong.

I literally could not comprehend, as you say, the complexity of the operating systems involved in air traffic control. It is very troubling that the pilots don't either, i think there is an element of 'Futureshock' here.

After reading the El Pais article, it makes more sense.

It was a computer in Spanair where the failures were registered that was infected, not a onboard computer.

The central computer at Spanair, in which were recorded the aircraft failures was infected with malicious software when the crash of Flight JK 5022 happened, two years ago today. The computer, located at the headquarters of the airline in Palma de Mallorca, emits an alarm on the monitor when it registers three similar technical problems in the same plane. The plane that crashed at Barajas today two years ago killed 154 of its 172 occupants, accumulating three incidents, which were not registered in time on the computer.

But the trojan is not the only responsible, obviously.

The deficiency of that computer is joined also by the fact that Spanair took about 24 hours to register in the computer failures of its planes, according to admissions from two mechanics from the airline to the judge. This is not a trivial matter, and the flight JK 5022 Madrid Barajas would not have taken off if its information on the computer had been updated. It would have triggered the alarm, since the spacecraft spotted two failures the day before the accident, August 19 and a third on the 20, the latter being responsible by the return from the runway, when the commander detected that a tube had overheated without justification. The mechanics are required to notify each failure to Spanair Palma immediately after detecting it. In this case, when employees tried to open the computer to write these three incidents they realized that the monitor was useless by the invasion of Trojans. By then, the plane had already crashed.

reply to post by whoshotJR

So you make virus/Trojans with the intent to harm other computers on purpose? Or Are you working on coding to help with program security holes for companies?

Both, if you want to get able to stop a spreading infection, you better know how are build thoses babies.

so , yes im used to build harmful programs.

well anyways i dont believe for a second about the "trojan that crashed a plane"

You are correct. The crash was due to pilot error. The pilots failed to do three critical things They failed to use the configuration checklist, the confirmation checklist, and the on board indicator was ignored. That allowed the pilot of that MD-82 to throttle up with his slats and flaps retracted. Unless they were taking off out of Area 51 they didn't have enough runway to takeoff clean.

English translation is here. There is no reference to the above "pilot error" diatribe.

reply to post by Big Raging Loner

You mention as well that Trojans must be piloted by an operator. Does this mean that if a Trojan was indeed the cause or partial cause of this air crash, that someone somewhere was controlling this virus during the planes fatal flight?

To answer your question.

if its proven a trojan caused the crash, so it technicaly mean it was controlled remotely by an operator

but as i repeat again its an hypothesis, a common trojan cannot infiltrate an aircraft by mistake, even with a faulty update or flash drive due to a simple thing : OS design , the backbone of the operation.

If a trojan for a specific system type A is facing a system type B,it aint gonna try to interact with the said system B

A worm type virus is totaly different
worms move to every communication system to spread and duplicate as longer as possible , to do so, they use some very simple instructions sets.

but the code itself can be really complicated, giving to the worms the abilities to litteraly infect any systems , knowing computers are using all the same common base of instructions

a simple exemple

PC and macs use different OS but the main logic system and instructions are the same for macs and PC

so if you design a worm targeting specificaly a codeset used by boths systems, you can spread faster

that kind of accident happened already on aircraft navigation systems, due to the update server running on a common OS, when the aircrafts updated the navigation system, connecting to the company server, the server itself was contaminated, so the update litteraly nailed down all the flights , they been forced to erase every datas onboard to b e sure there is no danger.

so no, i dont believe , in the case of a trojan,about an accidental contamination.






[edit on 23-8-2010 by OTTOKARMA]

reply to post by Big Raging Loner


Hey buddy that is a very scary tought!! imaging going on a plane and that happened, i agree with what you said!!
why would someone want to infect a plane like that or do they just travel from compute to computer?
Im a dummy when it comes to computers.
Fascinating stuff ,wow hope the amsterdam flight dont get one
stars and flag for sheer quaility

But to think that a trojan has to come from the internet and some guy is sending is not true. Just look at the Chinese digital picture frames that were infected from the factory. The trojan was built into a chip in the picture frames by someone with a little more than just a internet connection.
www.engadget.com...