Posted on 08/22/2010 12:52:55 PM PDT by James C. Bennett
154 lives were lost when Spanair Flight 5022 crashed moments after taking off from Madrid-Barajas International Airport in 2008. Now documents from an investigation into the incident are showing that a malware infection may have been to blame. According to the investigation, the computer system used to monitor technical problems on the plane was infected with a trojan. As a result, there were no alerts or warnings for three technical issues which "if detected, may have prevented the plane from taking off." The investigation is still not complete and authorities are trying to determine just how the malware got onto the computer system in question. [MSNBC] Photo by Andy Mitchell Update: To clarify, the computer system in question is described as being on the ground—not on the plane itself—and used to monitor the state of critical systems prior to take off.
Somebody went to a lot of trouble to leave out that the plane was a McDonnell Douglas MD-82. I Googled the crash (Flight Number) and really had to search to find the type of aircraft.
ping
Checklist? We don’t need no steenkin checklist!!
No, I think that Windows is a monstrosity of kluged-together code that, as the most prevalent operating system by far, also has the most effort aimed at finding ways to force stack overflow errors and root access.
There are so many better choices for embedded systems.
What would be interesting is if you disagree.
Sorry, the Microsoft OS is behind all these stories blaming the OS. I don't have that kind of power. I do thank you for thinking I am that powerful.
That's the real reason that Windows is such a target. If Linux or Apple had the market share that Microsoft has then they would be the target and all the self appointed software snobs would have someone else to talk trash about.
Not necessarily true. Windows has architectural weaknesses not present in other OS’s.
Such fundamental things as the way that a Linux based OS handles executable files makes them less vulnerable to all sorts of potential attacks.
“Sorry, the Microsoft OS is behind all these stories blaming the OS”
Nope its poor journalism.
‘Not necessarily true. Windows has architectural weaknesses not present in other OS’s.”
Really? Windows 7 has architectural weaknesses?
Most malware is introduced through user action. Click on a pdf or a jpg and the rest is easy.
That canard of "Security by Obscurity" has little to do with it, Sun. Apple will soon top 60,000,000 OS X systems in the wild. What exactly is the number of systems—99% of which are running bare naked to the Internet, not protected in any way except for a built-in Trojan horse identifier—before hackers, crackers, and other assorted malware writers suddenly gain an interest in computers that are owned by people who demographically have more disposable income, who have a reputation (wrongly) of being naive about computer protection, and who (under the Windows standard) should be considered "sitting ducks" to be invaded and taken over?
When a 2000 unit BotNet is worth $50,000 on the blackmarket for a mere TWO WEEK window of operation, where are the Mac OSX botnets that should be sprouting up everywhere among all these so-called "totally vulnerable", unprotected OSX Macs, if every OS were equally easy to penetrate? So far, there are THOUSANDS of Windows botnets and not ONE Apple Mac OSX botnet spreading malware. Not one.
(In the interests of full disclosure: in April 2009, two Symantec security specialists published an article in The Virus Bulletin, an independent $150 a month hacker journal, that they had identified a 20,000 member Mac OSX botnet in the wild spreading Trojans OSX.Iservice and OSX.Iservice.B malware in Europe. However, no other anti-malware company, including Symantec {!} or other researcher, anywhere, ever found even one member of this botnet. The two Symantec employees had not even reported their find to Symantec... something that did not go over well with Symantec, who after investigation, fired both of them. To date, no example of either the botnet, or OSX.Iservice and OSX.Iservice.B, have ever been seen in the wild. Never-the-less, this "botnet" was a three-day-wonder in the technical media... until it died and ignominious death of back page retractions and red-faced non-apologies.)
OS X has been in the wild for ten years now and there are still ZERO self-propagating, self-installing, self-transmitting viruses for OSX in the wild. There have been less than a dozen known proof-of-concept candidates for such viruses... and NOT ONE OF THEM WORKED! There are currently 17 known Trojans in three distinct families in the wild for OS X... and everyone of those families is identified BY THE OS, which warns the user they are downloading or installing a known Trojan. These Trojans are easy to remove if the user does install one. There is no "registry" to get corrupted on a Mac... and the ROOT files are protected. Data and heap overflow vulnerabilities are not so much of a problem on Macs because the data is loaded into NON-EXECUTABLE memory locations... usually, the worst thing that can happen is the app using that data crashes, resulting in a Denial of Service condition until the app is restarted. Any malicious code hidden in the overflow can do no harm because it cannot execute in that memory location.
The real reason that Windows is such a target is that it is a swiss cheese operating system that was not built from the ground up with multiple users and the access from the outside in mind. UNIX™ and it's derivative Linux were.
In addition, many of the "black box" test equipment devices such as these aircraft plug in status boxes, while they may seem ultra-modern, are using older non-updated versions of Windows. The operational theory being that they are never intended to connect to the internet and so need no stinkin' updates... "Don't fix what ain't broken." I have seen in-house dedicated computers running Windows95 and 98, and even a few MEs, some even without service packs... plugging away, perfectly operational. All it takes, with one of these, is a single time connected to the internet (or perhaps someone bringing in an unauthorized disk, flashdrive, etc.,) without protection and WHAM! infected. I would not be surprised to see that is the case with this situation. It is unlikely that a test equipment computer would be connected to the internet.
On the other hand, there may be a LAN network of test computers... all of which are not connected to the WAN. All it takes for that to be compromised is for ONE to be connected. I've seen that happen when a newby IT guy is brought in who is unfamiliar with the REASON the LAN is not connected to the Internet, and he decides "Wouldn't it be cool for the Service Manager to be able to connect to the LAN and monitor the reports from home... or his cell phone"... and hooks it up. WHAM! again... what once was an island of security has had its doors opened to the world without proper defenses put in place. It is REALLY hard to put the camel out side again, once he's gotten in.
Windows7 was running on a piece of avionics test equipment in 2008 when this accident occurred? Not by a long shot.
My considered opinion is that it would be likely WindowsXP... and maybe even Windows98. .. and probably not updated.
“Windows7 was running on a piece of avionics test equipment in 2008 when this accident occurred? Not by a long shot. “
Nope
“My considered opinion is that it would be likely WindowsXP... and maybe even Windows98. .. and probably not updated.”
Please read the story, your slip is showing. The plane wasn’t running any windows OS and the accident wasn’t caused by the malware. The accident was pilot error.
The story claims that a poorly maintained maintenance computer caused the crash. Just another microsoft hit job.
My post was a response to a general statement “..I think that Windows is a monstrosity of kluged-together code that”
Which is incorrect.
“That canard of “Security by Obscurity” has little to do with it, Sun. Apple will soon top 60,000,000 OS X systems in the wild. What exactly is the number of systems—99% of which are running bare naked to the Internet, not protected in any way except for a built-in Trojan horse identifier”
We’ve already seen Apple admit that certain vulnerabilities will allow a hacker to run any code they want on certain OS versions. That was announced in an Apple notification.
100,000 new malware signatures are created every single day mostly targeted at Windows systems. Apple makes up less than 5% of the desktop market. We’ve already seen some new malware targeted at Apple.
But perhaps you missed the thread that OS fights weren’t acceptable on FR anymore. So why are you doing it?
Thank you, your assumption that I did not read the story is incorrect. You are reading far too much into this, driftdiver. No slip here. The story referred to the fact that the software failed to warn that a human error was occurring. That software failure was not detected due to the fact that the ground based test equipment was infected by a trojan. The concatation of events led to, or contributed to the disaster.
Quit defending Microsoft for their software errors of the past.
I'm not. Discussions of software and hardware are permitted. Flames and personal attacks, as you did in your first reference to me in this thread, are not.
“Discussions of software and hardware are permitted.”
Thats one interpretation. So you’re ok with discussing apple’s problems as you have done here with Microsoft? In the past that always led to flame wars.
So the computer would have warned the pilots that they forgot to set the flaps?
That is incorrect. Pilot error caused the accident, not a computer.
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