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Boeing 747s still get critical updates via floppy disks

   [87]New, [88]43 comments

   A rare look inside a 20-year-old airliner
   By [89]Tom Warren[90]@tomwarren Aug 11, 2020, 7:08am EDT

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   British Airways Retires 747 Fleet Photo by Matthew Horwood/Getty Images

   Boeing’s 747-400 aircraft, first introduced in 1988, is still receiving
   critical software updates through 3.5-inch floppy disks. [99]The
   Register reports that security researchers at Pen Test Partners
   recently got access to a British Airways 747, after the airline decided
   to retire its fleet following a plummet in travel during the
   coronavirus pandemic. The team was able to inspect the full avionics
   bay beneath the passenger deck, with its data center-like racks of
   modular black boxes that perform different functions for the plane.

   Pen Test Partners discovered a 3.5-inch floppy disk drive in the
   cockpit, which is used to load important navigation databases. It’s a
   database that has to be updated every 28 days, and an engineer visits
   each month with the latest updates.

   IFRAME: [100]https://www.youtube.com/embed/yq8wgJO-JXY?rel=0

   While it might sound surprising that 3.5-inch floppy disks are still in
   use on airplanes today, many of Boeing’s 737s have also been using
   floppy disks to load avionics software for years. The databases housed
   on these floppy discs are increasingly getting bigger, according to a
   2015 [101]report from Aviation Today. Some airlines have been moving
   away from the use of floppy discs, but others are stuck with engineers
   visiting each month to sit and load eight floppies with updates to
   airports, flight paths, runways, and more.

   The 10-minute video tour of the 747 (above) is a fascinating insight
   into the parts of the plane you never get to see, particularly on a
   decades-old airliner. The tour is part of this year’s virtual Def Con
   conference, the US’ largest hacker conference. As modern planes rely
   upon ever more sophisticated technology, security researchers are
   increasingly interested in how planes prevent passengers from
   interfering with flights.
   Boeing’s 747 floppy disk drive. Aerospace Village ([102]YouTube)

   Security is particularly relevant when it comes to in-flight
   entertainment systems. A cybersecurity professor [103]discovered a
   buffer overflow exploit onboard a British Airways flight last year. The
   professor was able to use a USB mouse to input long strings of text
   into an in-flight chat app, crashing the entire in-flight entertainment
   system for his seat. Security researchers are still hunting for
   vulnerabilities that would allow them to communicate with flight
   systems from publicly accessible parts of planes.

   Related

[104]A personal ode to the Boeing 747

[105]The many human errors that brought down the Boeing 737 Max

   A focus on security is even more important on the latest aircraft.
   Modern planes like Boeing’s 777X and 787 use fiber networks, where all
   the avionics plug into this network and are controlled by a pair of
   computers that run flight critical software. It’s more of a traditional
   network like you’d find inside an office building, and some of the
   latest airliners even receive software updates over the air. The
   software that powers modern aircraft isn’t always reliable, though.
   Boeing only just [106]resumed production of its troubled 737 Max
   airplane after software glitches led to [107]two fatal crashes that
   killed a total of 346 passengers and crew members.

   Despite modern technology being available, it hasn’t stopped floppy
   disks from persisting in other industries. The US Defense Department
   only [108]ended the use of 8-inch floppy disks for coordinating the
   country’s nuclear forces in October, and the International Space
   Station is [109]full of floppy disks.

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