On Air, Issue 14 - Cybersecurity in Aviation

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Cologne, April, 2017

On Air, Issue 14: Cybersecurity in Aviation

Editorial - Interview - Featured topic - Figure of the month - News & events

UNEXPECTED THREATS

We need to be prepared for the threat of cyber-attacks in aviation; it is not a matter of if it will happen but when it will happen. The growing risks come from the use of new technologies and new devices: for example, pilots are increasingly using devices connected to the cockpit, such as flight maps, and we have no way to guarantee these cannot be hacked. And new technologies will only develop.

We have recently announced a plan for a Europe-wide initiative. Our goal is to protect Europe’s planes and drones from getting hacked. This includes the whole aviation chain, from Air Traffic Management Systems to maintenance organizations, and airports. As part of our plan, we believe that the different aviation stakeholders should implement a cyber-risk management system as part of their safety management system.

Freddy Dezeure, Head of CERT-EU, explains the cooperation with EASA

1. What is Computer Emergency Response Team - CERT-EU’s mission?
CERT-EU’s mission is to enhance the security of the information and communications technology (ICT) infrastructure of all EU institutions, bodies and agencies (hereinafter referred to as its ‘constituents’). It supports incident prevention, detection, mitigation and response by acting as the cyber-security information exchange and incident response coordination hub for its constituents.
Our goal is to help our constituents to avoid being breached by cyber-attacks and in case they would be compromised nevertheless to detect and remediate incidents as quickly as possible.
Our work in prevention consists in drawing lessons from relevant past incidents in the constituency or the broader community into best practices in hardening, configuration management and awareness raising to mitigate the risk of cyber-attacks. Prevention advice is made available through white papers, advisories and reports. Many of these can be found on our website www.cert.europa.eu.

IMPLEMENTATION OF A EUROPEAN CENTRE FOR CYBER SECURITY IN AVIATION (ECCSA)

After the ‘Joint Communication to the European Parliament, the Council, the European Economic and Social Committee and the Committee of the Regions - Cybersecurity Strategy of the European Union: An Open, Safe and Secure Cyberspace’, JOIN(2013) 1 from7 February 2013, EASA And CERT-EU signed in February this year a memorandum of mutual cooperation (MoC) for the implementation of a European Centre for Cyber Security in Aviation (ECCSA).

The EASA ‘Cybersecurity roadmap’ presented in 2015 has been considered as basis for implementing a cybersecurity framework for aviation – taking into account the principles laid in the new European ATM Master Plan and in the EU Aviation Strategy- acting as support to the European Commission, EASA Member States, EASA and industry work.

The memorandum includes the areas of responsibility of both parties. On the one hand, CERT-EU agrees to provide the appropriate and secure IT infrastructure services as well as the cybersecurity tools and threat management services needed for the development of cyber-secure components in aviation. On the other hand, EASA will provide the analyst resources and technical expertise for the coordination of the ECCSA. Both agree to execute the Technical Roadmap within the given milestones for this purpose and maintain close collaboration between their analysts’ teams.

What will ECCSA do?

ECCSA will primarily serve as an information sharing and management platform, a key enabler for implementing a resilient aviation cyberspace. ECCSA will provide secure means for aviation stakeholders to exchange domain relevant cybersecurity information, such as vulnerabilities, i.e. weakness that can be used for malicious purposes, as well as events and incidents that might be worth sharing with the aviation community.