Traffic Alert and Collision Avoidance System (TCAS) II has a Reliance on Untrusted Inputs in a Security Decision vulnerability
By utilizing software-defined radios and a custom low-latency processing pipeline, RF signals with spoofed location data can be transmitted to aircraft targets. This can lead to the appearance of fake aircraft on displays and potentially trigger undesired Resolution Advisories (RAs).
Traffic Alert and Collision Avoidance System (TCAS) II has a Reliance on Untrusted Inputs in a Security Decision vulnerability
By utilizing software-defined radios and a custom low-latency processing pipeline, RF signals with spoofed location data can be transmitted to aircraft targets. This can lead to the appearance of fake aircraft on displays and potentially trigger undesired Resolution Advisories (RAs).
After consulting with the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) and the researchers regarding these vulnerabilities, it has been concluded that CVE-2024-11166 can be fully mitigated by upgrading to ACAS X or by upgrading the associated transponder to comply with RTCA DO-181F.
Currently, there is no mitigation available for CWE-2024-9310.
These vulnerabilities in the TCAS II standard are exploitable in a lab environment. However, they require very specific conditions to be met and are unlikely to be exploited outside of a lab setting.
Organizations observing suspected malicious activity should follow established internal procedures and report findings to CISA for tracking and correlation against other incidents.
No known public exploitation specifically targeting these vulnerabilities has been reported to CISA at this time. These vulnerabilities are not exploitable remotely. These vulnerabilities have a high attack complexity.
Exploits
Credits
finder
Giacomo Longo and Enrico Russo of Genova University reported these vulnerabilities to CISA. Martin Strohmeier and Vincent Lenders of armasuisse reported these vulnerabilities to CISA. Alessio Merlo of Centre for High Defense Studies reported these vulnerabilities to CISA.
By utilizing software-defined radios and a custom low-latency processing pipeline, RF signals with spoofed location data can be transmitted to aircraft targets. This can lead to the appearance of fake aircraft on displays and potentially trigger undesired Resolution Advisories (RAs).