With constant changes and a VUCA world scenario the threat perceptions of the industry continue to evolve. Let us deep dive into some of those scenarios which may seem to be apparently harmless but, how they are forcing changes.
Imagine a scenario that you are stuck in a busy airport with thousands other passengers with no systems like check-in, boarding, baggage handling, passenger information systems, any many other critical airside systems working. Hundreds of Airplanes sitting on the apron at their parking bays and many circling around in the sky asking for a landing slot. Some of them may be running on low fuel taking diversions. Cafeterias maybe, running out of food items. Does this sound like an apocalyptic Hollywood movie scene? Well this could be a reality as well with rapidly changing, constantly evolving security scenario in a VUCA world.
What is VUCA?
The VUCA stands for Volatile, Uncertain, Complex and Ambiguous. Now, imagine that when you woke up in the morning to catch that flight, you never thought of such a scenario. It’s a routine task, drive to the airport, drop off your baggage, go through the security check, board the flight, take-off. what’s the big deal!
Now, every small system is betraying and you along with thousands other passengers are going through this unimaginable pain. Well, you could just be the victim of uncertainty caused by a volatile act of an adversary to create chaos through an organized and complex takedown of the critical systems.
Some real-world incidents
Remember the ransomware attacks on some of the top global airlines where their passenger data got compromised. Or, multiple and frequent drone sightings near some of the busiest European airports in last few months where several flights had to be cancelled or delayed, airport operations had to be halted causing billions of dollars in losses. Or, multiple reporting by the pilots about navigational equipment malfunctioning in certain regions causing safety scares for the passengers.
These are not isolated incidents. They are part of a larger patterns how your adversaries can cripple your systems by using the very technology that was supposed to help you, without even firing a single bullet. suddenly, you start feeling unsettled with the technology that was empowering you.
So, how the aviation industry is coping up and getting ahead?
While such scenarios are deeply unsettling, the aviation industry is learning to adapt and evolve with everyday uncertainty. Though, the aviation industry runs on fail-safe methodology where redundancies are built on redundancies but, something still surprises us. With the world getting more volatile and countries navigate through their complex relationships such attacks could become more frequent and nastier. Industry cannot be a sitting duck waiting for a disaster but, has to strategically think, act and safeguard itself.
To counter such scenarios the stakeholders in the industry are already focusing not only strengthening the cyber security for the land-side system but, also the airside critical systems and the ACARS communications networks. While sudden drone invasion could be difficult to avoid but, the soft kill measures around the airports are going to be critical to disable such unwelcoming guests early on before they could create any havoc.
Also, building the layered navigational redundancies is a critical need of the hour to counter the spoofing of satellite based navigation. The GPS spoofing has become frequent and detrimental in some of the world’s most volatile regions where the pilots really faces the safety threat with navigational aides behaving awkward. Though, the experienced pilots learned how to navigate in such situations and airlines and regulators drafted their SOPs for such scenarios, it is necessary to technologically challenge these threats as well. The mix of legacy dead reckoning, GPS and additional aiding mechanisms could create a layered redundant system where maybe, the dead reckoning system takes lead to provide navigational cues when the GPS signal gets spoofed or lost. There are some of the organizations already actively working on to constantly innovate and mitigate such risks.
Conclusion
While the airlines, regulators, industry bodies, OEMs and other aerospace suppliers are all working on mitigating these constantly evolving threats it is necessary to have a wholistic and industry wide strategic approach to effectively challenge not only the threats of today but, be future ready. Because, the challenges will evolve faster than the solutions. Therefore, it’s absolutely imperative for the stakeholders to safeguard themselves well in advance and strategically think of tomorrow’s problem and find solutions in time.