Cyber Attack Read Online Free

actions will not be recognized.
    “First, we’ll adjust the altitude to twenty-six thousand feet—just to let them know we’re flying their plane,” he continued. “Watch here.”
    Walthaus pointed to FlightAware, and Lau turned his attention to the screen. When Walthaus refreshed the screen, the airspeed had declined, along with the aircraft’s altitude.
    “Whoa!” exclaimed Walthaus. “Sorry about that! It’s hard to adjust the controls using a mouse and its cursor. I just took the plane into a dive and probably scared the shit out of everybody on board. Let me level this off at twenty thousand feet.”
    “Is that too low?” asked Lau.
    “No, eighteen thousand feet is considered the upper end of an air traffic’s transitional level, where the most activity takes place,” said Walthaus. “We’ll maintain this altitude and course for a few minutes, to give everyone on board an opportunity to catch their breath. Then we’ll climb back to thirty-three thousand feet.”
    Ordinarily, the Zero Day Gamers had a profit motive. The hijack by hacking of the American Airlines flight was a test. Today, they would determine whether the hack could be achieved, in addition to gauging the government’s response.
    “At this point, the pilots have probably reported a Mayday to the nearest air traffic control tower—either St. Louis or Louisville,” said Malvalaha. “Their flight training would dictate a simple procedure of turning off the autopilot and resuming control of the aircraft manually. Unfortunately for them, the Boeing Uninterruptible Autopilot system has built-in safeguards that prevent the pilots from overriding our controls.”
    “What prevents NORAD or the FAA from taking over the operation of the plane via its satellite controls?” asked Lau.
    “We’ve installed a version of the TeslaCrypt Ransomware onto the plane’s servers,” said Malvalaha. “This malware blocks access to the aircraft’s onboard computers by everybody until released by us. In the future, we’ll provide them a message with a monetary demand. Today, we’re just sending a message.”
     

Chapter 5
    May 8, 2016
    3:17 p.m.
    NORAD—Air Defense Operations Center
    Cheyenne Mountain Air Force Station, Colorado
     
    “Sir, Wright Patterson has been notified of the situation,” said the technical sergeant who was manning the console tracking American Airlines Flight 129. “I have Lieutenant Colonel Darren Reynolds on the line, sir.”
    Colonel Arnold pressed the remote transmit button for his headset. “Colonel Reynolds, this is Colonel James Arnold. Please stay on the line as we assess the situation.”
    “Colonel Arnold, we have scrambled two F-16s. Time is running out. Once ADOC was notified, we ceased communications with the Indianapolis Air Traffic Control Center and turned comms over to you.”
    “Thank you, Colonel,” said Arnold. “Sergeant, contact the aircraft.”
    “American Airlines one-two-niner, United States Air Force Air Defense Operations Center. Over,” said the airman.
    After a moment, the response came through the overhead speakers.
    “Air Defense, this is Captain Randy Gray.”
    “Captain Gray, this is Colonel Arnold. What steps have you taken to gain control of your aircraft?” asked Colonel Arnold.
    “The most logical step is to turn off the plane’s autopilot,” said Gray. “But the autopilot is unresponsive. In fact, all of our controls are unresponsive. We’ve had no flight control for nearly seventeen minutes now.”
    “Stand by, Captain Gray,” said Colonel Arnold.
    He pointed to the sergeant to mute the conversation, waiting several seconds before addressing his team.
    “If this 757 is outfitted with Boeing’s new autopilot system, why haven’t we simply taken control of the aircraft?”
    “Malware has been inserted into the aircraft’s onboard server network, preventing any type of outside access,” said another airman. “Boeing technical support is working on a solution, but