A pair of ANA pilots in the cockpit of a Boeing 787, and yes, they still have manual controls. Via Boeing
A talk given by a security consultant at the Hack In The Box conference in Amsterdam has been making waves for a couple days now, largely because it made bold claims: Hugo Teso, who's also a trained commercial pilot, said he'd developed a way to hijack airplanes (as in take over their flight controls) by attacking the plane's systems wirelessly using an Android app he developed.
The ability to take control of an aircraft via an Android app is obviously a scary possibility. And it's true that a lot of aircraft systems–like many industrial networks–aren't as secure as they should be. But a guy crashing a plane with his phone? I wouldn't worry about that.
Zeljka Zorz and Berislav Kucan at Net Security wrote an in-depth explanation of Teso's demonstration and claims, which is worth the read if you haven't heard about the nuts and bolts yet. For everyone else, the notable point is that Teso set up a framework to gain access to two aircraft systems that broadcast wirelessly: the Automatic Dependent Surveillance-Broadcast (ADS-B), which communicates flight, traffic, and weather data back and forth with air traffic controllers; and the Aircraft Communications Addressing and Reporting System (ACARS), which essentially sends standardized messages back and forth between pilots and the ground, in some cases automatically so that pilots don't have to spend their time sending in standard reports.
Now, it's true that both systems are insecure, and it does have some worrisome implications--for one, perhaps someone could spoof a plane via the ADS-B to warn pilots of a mid-air collision, which would likely cause some chaos on the flight deck. Regardless, that airline systems are so susceptible to attacks is certainly something that needs to be fixed.
A nice ADS-B explainer, if you want to know more.
But the claim that a plane could be remotely controlled--which Teso did simulate in his talk, although the doom hype blame also lies with some media outlets--is pretty much false, for a number of reasons.