Can the F-35 Fighter Jet fighter be Hacked ?
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The F-35, the most advanced stealth fighter in the world, continues to create headlines even before entering operational service. The Israeli airforce has already purchased 19 F-35.
The F-35, the latest fighter jet being developed for the U.S. Armed Forces, has hit another potential snag. This time it’s not questions of the jet’s structural integrity or even questions of relevance in combat. It’s the plane’s vulnerability to hackers.
The F-35’s helmet displays an augmented reality overview, which is drawn from six cameras across the body of the plane. This enables the pilot to look around the cockpit and, instead of seeing the interior of the plane, see directly through the cameras at the world outside.
This computational capability is all run by a computer system called ALIS. Looks basically like a laptop computer, and the pilot carries it out to the plane and sticks it in a slot right next to him in the cockpit. That contains all the information about the mission he’s gonna fly. The servers which run all of this software take up a room about the size of a shipping container.
iHLS – Israel Homeland Security
This is a prime target for a hacker. If the enemy can hack into all that software that’s running the mission, then the fighter aircraft is defeated without firing a bullet.
According to the Business Insider it seems the ALIS has been given too much power over the F-35. For example, ALIS has the ability to ground planes indefinitely if it detects anything wrong with the plane. Human intervention cannot overrule ALIS, either.
If hackers could manage to infiltrate the network that ALIS relies on, it is very possible that they could brick an entire F-35 fleet. This would render the plane, the most expensive weapons system ever, completely useless.
Experts in the U.S say that the probability of hacking the F-35 is very low because its systems are protected. They also say that when hackers get more sophisticated more steps should be taken.
