Boeing Gets Hacked | Outdated Software to Blame

Real World Aviation
#1

https://www.forbes.com/sites/leemathews/2018/03/30/boeing-is-the-latest-wannacry-ransomware-victim/

On Wednesday morning Boeing was hacked by the “WannaCry” Virus. According to the article, Boeing was running outdated software on some of their machines and those were the ones that were affected. The update was considered to be “of the highest urgency” and had been available for 10 months. The reason Boeing had outdated software was because “Systems that play a vital role sometimes depend on very specific hardware or programming that could be negatively impacted by upgrading.”

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#2

I mean…it’s Boeing. They’re outdated to begin with.

I’m joking (somewhat) 😂 relax guys. Interesting issue. I’ve never heard of this virus before.

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#3


Found this about the WannaCry virus. Rather interesting.
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#4

Well, Boeing better fix the issue as fast as they can

#5

Yeah it’s been used to infiltrate the NHS. It’s Windows XP which is the culprit. Hasn’t been done much in the US so it’s probably new to you guys. It really caused a lot of problems and resulted in people not being able to make appointments or organise surgeries etc. Potentially very dangerous.

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#7

I wonder when they’ll start blaming Russia for this…

Jokes aside (even though I’m sure they will), that malware has been around for some time. Instead of putting their focus on suing companies like Bombardier for whatever hypocritical booboo they’re having, they could use that money to upgrade from Windows 95 to Windows XP. It’s not the software you have to blame here. You have to blame Boeing for not doing anything against it.

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#8

Lol. It’s not a big deal. I mean, quite a lot of big corporations were infected.

This is what happens when you have legacy software running on older operating systems. Not unusual at all. It’s mostly because that software is by far, the most stable there is for whatever task it performs.

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#9

Yeah but just because it’s happening to a lot of corporations doesn’t mean it’s not a big deal.

Cambridge Analytica illegally used user data of 50 Million accounts. Just because this happened to 50 Million people doesn’t mean it’s not a big deal, does it? Every cyber attack is illegal. Sensitive data is being infected and affected. That can have a massive influence on the affacted company as well as for other people.

If those hackers manage to hack Boeing, they’re able to hack other companies as well. Let’s say they hack a hospital and block every patient files. That could be a catastrophe.

It is big deal, even though it’s happening a lot. The consequences can be severe.

#10

That’s two very different things. The Cambridge stuff is actually information you’ve approved for 3rd parties to use… and there was no malfunction, hack or other kind of technical issue there. Just really bad morals.

That’s the thing. From what I’ve seen so far, Wannacry have only affected fairly simple systems. Nothing critical at all. I can promise you that stuff like journals and similar kind of files are in completely different kind of databases that can’t be affected by it.

I was myself involved in a Wannacry incident at work. It’s not that big of a deal. Just slightly annoying.

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#11

That still makes it some sort of a big deal. If companies like Boeing (who btw also produce military equipment) use a „fairly simple system“ that can be affected by a malware like Wannacry, I’m starting to worry about the cyber security and data protection over there. A company should make sure that their data, which at the end also contains data of their customers, is save.

#12

Well if it wasn’t an issue till now there shouldn’t be a reason to worry but now that it happened maybe they will get new software

#13

So, if an employees laptop gets infected you’d call that a big deal? :) Because that’s the level of security we’re talking about on the machines that gets infected.

#14

Actually I do. See, I work for a Swiss Bank. If only one Laptop at work got infected, there’d be a lot of problems. Not only for the owner of the laptop, but also the bank itself. If there’s a malware on such a laptop theoretically it could get access to tons of client data that’s highly sensitive, depending of who owns the laptop. Not only because we’re talking about client data, but also because this data must be protected by law, because of the Swiss Bank Secrecy.

So I think it depends on the company we’re talking about. If it’s a laptop of local grocery store, I’m sure nothing bad will happen. If it’s a laptop that has access to sensitive client data, like for example in a bank, it’s getting really bad.

#15

I’d say you have some pretty lousy security then, especially for being a bank :) But that’s another story.

I think we can agree to disagree in this case. :)

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#16

I agree. Let’s agree to disagree so at least we agree on something tonight. There are enough childish disagreements on this planet so let’s be a good example 🤗

Have a nice evening up there in Sweden!

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#17

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