Aviation Cyber Threats Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 3000 words

Aviation Cyber Threats - Essay Example However, there were several laws that were passed in the congress after September 11 terrorist attacks. In the process, a series of homeland security presidential directives were issued for sustaining domestic security (Vacca, 2009). However, on the other hand, despite an economic turmoil from September 11 attacks, the aviation industry continues to grow at a rapid pace and is considered as a fundamental transformation. Moreover, there is also a significant change for managing air traffic via net-centric approach (Markarian, Kolle, & Tarter, n.d). The acquisition of this change will replace the traditional approach for controlling air traffic that is constructed on Information technology solutions. By focusing on aviation security, there is a significant increase in utilizing computerized systems onboard of an air carrier. Likewise, these systems facilitate high airborne and internally located system connectivity, operational and maintenance requirements (Markarian, Kolle, & Tarter, n.d). Moreover, the net-centric ATM connectivity raises concerns for cyber security threats and vulnerabilities. Propagation threats are critical because it is capable of rapidly broadcasting traffic on the Internet along with bypassing intrusion detection systems (Hatahet, Bouabdallah, & Challal, 2010). Likewise, for augmenting the primary phase of work propagation, it uses a ‘hit list’ comprising of overflowed users i.e. users consuming heavy bandwidth. By identifying users, worm spreads itself at a rapid pace when compared to traditional spreading worms (Hatahet, Bouabdallah, & Challal, 2010). Moreover, this type of attack saves a considerable amount of scanning time by only attacking a visible target. In the context of any cyber threat to an airport, the airport cannot be the primary target, as the Spanair flight JK5022 crash was successful by one of the contributions from a Malware (Markarian, Kolle, & Tarter, n.d). System Wide Information Management (SWIM) that is a program for delivering foundation that is vital for renewing the national airspace system in to an operation that is represented as ‘network-centric’ (Markarian, Kolle, & Tarter, n.d). Likewise the SWIM is sponsored by the umbrella of SESAR for Europe and in the United states, it is sponsored by NextGen. Commonly, the SWIM program is stated as ‘aviation intranet’ (Markarian, Kolle, & Tarter, n.d). Likewise, by utilizing ‘publish and subscribe mechanisms’, the intranet will demonstrate a ‘net- centric’ approach. Apart from all these advantages, there are always cyber threats that are associated with it. As mentioned earlier about the net-centric approach, that will utilize point to point connectivity, any single vulnerability will result in a complete network compromise because of distributed application and network resources. Aviation information systems must be resilient, redundant, ensure integrity of data and most importantly ‘always available’. These features are associated with safety principles that are applicable to operational functions in the aviation industry. For instance, control messages are communicated from the control tower to the pilot, who is one of the crew members on the flight. Any mistake or manipulation in communicated messages may result in a catastrophic event or disaster that may