Originally Posted by
tdracer
Disclaimer - I don't know how they do this on newer networked aircraft like the 787, but the systems on the 737, 747, 757, and 767 use ARINC 429 ONE WAY data busses to communicate aircraft information to the IFE. I'm repeating myself (again), but ARINC 429 is effectively hack proof because it's one-way (so it's impossible to corrupt the source from the destination), and you need a physical connection to put data on the bus.
The most a hacker could hope to due via the IFE would be to take down the ARINC 429 data bus.
Just one of the many things that make the hacking claims so laughably fake...
ARINC429 is a 2 way data buss with separate TX and RX wires. So long as the IFE is only connected as a receiver (and no doubt that it is) then you are fine. There is no way a hardware receiver can become a transmitter which is what would be needed to affect the buss. Taking down the buss should not be possible unless there was some really bad hardware design errors in the IFE receiver. Taking down the ARINC429 buss I suspect would be seriously inconvenient,