Delta probes Wi-Fi deauth attack on flight carrying DEF CON attendees

but isn't that the other kind of hacker?

life hacks are also hacker news, I guess x)

Even if there's newer equipment, Protected Management Frames (PMF) compatibility with older laptops (for example) would be problematic. This is also the reason why WPA2/WPA3 co-existence mode fails on older equipment that is compatible with "normal" WPA2 (because PMF is mandatory in WPA2/3 coex mode).

Given that the whole wi-fi systems on planes are all very old unless the planes have Starlink, I wouldn't assume it's even remotely new.

Note: Not that it wouldn't be possible to have even SOTA wi-fi 7 and still use the same old legacy satellite uplink WAN connection, it's just that I can't imagine what airline would consider that "upgrade" worth taking airplanes out of service for to perform, when it wouldn't do jack to increase the speeds people would get.

You would be surprised by the number of professionals who would be at peak tech performance if they could pull it off

IT security is a lot more about the processes, risk, and data management that technical performance these days.

The book to study for CISSP CBK is hardly any technical (The Code Book is more technical than that)

The ISO 27000 series defines an Information security management system that doesn't even need to involve "computer", as it discusses more about data in the organization.

Research these days is also based a lot on how to address security risks on top of safety risks, not just how to hack any system (and I do believe that the obsession of the aviation industry about these studies is why everything was ready so that suspects were met with police)

Agreed, and it seems to lack the hacker spirit I'd expect out of someone attending DEFCON. The only intentions I can figure out would be...

1. Just to screw with fellow passengers - dick move, how do you know someone wasn't working on something critically important on that wi-fi?

2. 'Robin Hood'?? If they had a paid wi-fi session and were gonna bridge all the passengers who connected to their rogue AP onto it for free. Extremely farfetched theory though since they could have easily still done this without deauthing the people, who'd already paid anyway.

3. Actual black-hat hacking, hoping to snoop on people's connections for cybercrime reasons.

Can't say I'm bothered at all that these guys had the cops called on them.

The actual hacker creds is earned by not getting caught by a federal investigation.

Although, with Kash Patel's FSB cosplayers, maybe that's playing in easy mode.

And remember, you can't brag about it either, that's how most get caught.

Sure, but you probably shouldn't mess with planes, even is mundane or trivial.

For some reason, we treat planes super differently than every other public space or transport.