This Coin-Sized Device Can Hack a Boeing 737
Aug 12, 2026 8:00 AM
Security researchers found that in less than 60 seconds, they could open a hatch on a plane’s exterior, plug in a tiny device, and redirect the aircraft’s autopilot or sabotage its flight plan.
Photo-Illustration: Jobanny Cabrera; Getty Images
Even as the digital components of so many life-critical systems have proven susceptible to cybersabotage—cars, medical devices, even water utilities and power grids—the computer systems of airplanes have, thankfully, remained uniquely inaccessible to hackers. But one group of academic researchers has spent years testing a different, devious approach to aviation cybersecurity. Perhaps, they suggest, a plane could be hacked the same way that spies and saboteurs have targeted other high-value, offline computers: by surreptitiously gaining physical access to one and plugging in a device designed to silently run the attackers' malicious code.
The researchers' hacking device, next to a quarter for scale.
Photograph Courtesy of UCSD
The hacking device (bottom) next to the connector it fits into on a Boeing 737, one that can be found inside a port that’s accessible from a hatch on the plane’s exterior.
Photograph Courtesy of UCSD
UCSD professor Aaron Schulman pushing a button on the Flight Management Computer that's part of the researchers' Triton avionics test bed, a collection of wired-together Boeing 737 computer components.
Photograph: Erik Jepsen/University of California San Diego
The Flight Management Computer, altered to display the name of the researchers' hacking technique, Bus Driver.
Photograph: Erik Jepsen/University of California San DiegoTake our survey: Do you work in tech? We want to hear from you
Reporting from WIRED contributed to this story.
