By JACK GILLUM
WASHINGTON (AP) – United Airlines kept a prominent security researcher from boarding a San Francisco-bound flight late Saturday after he suggested on Twitter that onboard aircraft systems could be compromised.
Researcher Chris Roberts was travelling to a computer security conference when United wouldn’t let him on the plane. Roberts was detained by authorities last week for joking he could deploy the oxygen masks.
Roberts founded a security firm whose job is to find vulnerabilities in computer systems before their exploited by hackers.
A United spokesman said Roberts was denied boarding for making “claims regarding manipulating aircraft systems” but said the systems couldn’t be accessed the way Roberts described.
A new report last week by a congressional watchdog said some modern aircraft could be vulnerable to attack by in-flight wireless networks.