Description

Injection of false emergency or status messages over CPDLC may lead to misallocation of resources, operational confusion, and improper response actions by flight crews, traffic controllers, and ground operations. This type of attack can be carried out remotely over radio frequency.

Executive Summary

Technical Details

Mitigations

References

Additional Metadata

{
  "score": "7.1",
  "pubDate": "2026-08-07T19:17:34.190Z",
  "pubdate": "2026-08-07T19:17:34.190Z",
  "executiveSummary": "This vulnerability involves the unauthorized injection of false emergency or status messages over the Controller-Pilot Data Link Communications (CPDLC) protocol. The primary impact includes the misallocation of operational resources, severe situational confusion, and improper tactical response actions executed by flight crews, air traffic controllers, and ground operations personnel. The affected systems encompass aeronautical data link communications utilizing the CPDLC protocol over radio frequency channels. The risk implications are critical, as successful exploitation undermines the integrity and reliability of safety-critical air-ground communications. Attacker capabilities include the remote transmission of forged data link messages without requiring physical access to aircraft or air traffic control facilities. Exploitation requirements involve the capability to transmit radio frequency signals capable of reaching vulnerable receivers and injecting fraudulent protocol data units into the communication stream.",
  "technicalDetails": "The vulnerability stems from the inherent lack of robust cryptographic authentication, message integrity verification, and replay protection within legacy radio frequency-based communication protocols used in aeronautical data link environments, specifically affecting the CPDLC protocol. The vulnerable component is the air-ground data link receiver and message processing subsystem responsible for parsing incoming CPDLC messages.\nExploitation occurs remotely over radio frequency channels where an adversarial entity leverages unauthorized transmitters to broadcast crafted uplink or downlink messages. The attack flow begins with the adversary generating a malicious payload that mimics legitimate CPDLC message structures, specifically targeting emergency, urgent status, or operational routing instructions. Because the protocol lacks adequate cryptographic validation of message origin and integrity, the receiving systems—whether onboard the aircraft or at air traffic control facilities—process the forged messages as authentic instructions.\nUpon reception, the flight deck or controller display subsystems parse the injected frames and present the false emergency or status information to the operators. This payload behavior directly misleads flight crews and air traffic controllers into believing a genuine emergency or operational state exists, triggering improper response actions, unnecessary course deviations, or resource misallocation. The attack requires no prior authentication or elevated privileges within the communication architecture, as it relies entirely on the open nature of the radio frequency transmission medium and the absence of strong cryptographic trust boundaries in the targeted messaging layer."
}