Indian Air Force (IAF) has made the details of its preliminary inquiry made on the recent crash of its Sukhoi 30 Fighter Jet available to the media last week. And those details suggest that the crash which led to the death of its 2 trained air force pilots was a result of a cyber-attack launched by a foreign nation.
On May 23rd, 2017, a Sukhoi 30 aircraft which was meant for air warfare crashed on the India- China Border under mysterious conditions. The wreckage of the plane was discovered three days after the crash and an analysis of the crash was carried out by IAF.
The inquiry made by IAF led to the discovery of a fact that the flying aircraft was cyber attacked when it was airborne which led to the death of the two IAF officers- squadron leader D Pankaj and Flight Lieutenant Achudev who were flying the aircraft. The death was caused due to the failure in initiating the ejection process of the pilot’s seat due to a cyber interference caused in the air.
Thus, IAF has come to a conclusion that their Sukhoi jet was downed by cyber weapons initiated by a foreign nation which could be China.
Even though India’s traditional defense establishments said that the probe is still on and has to be inquired thoroughly in all angles, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) of the United States has reported that the chances of downing a fighter in air through cyber weapons are rich.
Mentioning the report generated by it in 2008 as a reference, the US FAA stated that many new commercials, as well as fighter jets, are vulnerable to cyber attacks due to lack of security standards.
It has to be notified over here that in the year 2008, US FAA was the first government organization to analyze the fact that Boeing’s 787 Dreamliner passenger jet had serious security vulnerabilities in its onboard computer network which could allow passengers access the plane’s control systems and make it vulnerable to a serious hack.
And due to this reason, the 45th president of United States, Mr. Donald Trump took a precautionary measure in 2017 by signing an executive order to ban passengers from carrying laptops while flying to the United States from several destinations.
Note- In 2016, Raytheon, a major US-based defense manufacturer and the largest producer of guided missiles, announced that it is working on a multi-billion dollar project which could provide commercial and military aviation industry a software defined cyber attack warning system.
Currently, IAF is busy in compiling the final report of the Sukhoi 30 jet crash and will submit to the Indian government by this month end.
And after receiving the report, the Indian government is said to take a decision on this matter after consulting the leaders of nations like France, United States, UK, and Canada.
