US Air Force moves to fortify F-35 weak points against hacking

[InfoSec News <alerts () infosecnews org>]

https://www.defensenews.com/air/2018/11/14/us-air-force-moves-to-fortify-f-35-weak-points-against-hacking/

By Sebastian Sprenger
DefenseNews
November 14, 2018

BERLIN -- The U.S. Air Force is devoting fresh energy to plugging 
cybersecurity holes in the F-35's external support systems, as they are 
deemed the easiest entry points for hackers into the fifth-generation 
combat jet, according to a key service official.

"It's a software-based aircraft, and any software-based platform is going 
to be susceptible to hacking," Brig. Gen. Stephen Jost, director of the 
Air Force F-35 Integration Office, told Defense News in an interview at 
the International Fighter industry conference here.

The service considers the information backbone of the actual airplane -- 
managed by manufacturer Lockheed Martin -- relatively safe. That is thanks 
to what Jost called "multilayer security protections" ranging from secure 
authentication when crafting mission data packages for each aircraft 
before takeoff, to pilots punching in personal identification numbers to 
start up the plane.

The confidence wanes "as you get further from the air vehicle," Jost said. 
When taking into account systems like the Autonomic Logistics Information 
System or the Joint Reprogramming Environment, there are "a lot of nodes 
of vulnerability that we're trying to shore up," he added.

[...]



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