There are always more than five thousand planes on the skies every single minute and most of these aircraft rely on software for their operations. Any failure in the airline industry or even just a single airline could lead to a massive grounding of planes or worse!
Air traffic management has embraced the use of digital technologies in airports and for a supply chain in order to improve efficiencies.
Cyber criminals may have taken advantage of this to create an access point to the systems in order to steal data or to create damages. There is a greater need for all the aviation stakeholders to come together and boost the security efforts to ensure that their customers travel safely.
The airline industry has been taking the cybersecurity risks very seriously and is actively working to mitigate the possible risks.
How to keep safe from cyber threats in an airplane
There are several actions needed to ensure safety in the aircraft industry and at an independent organization level.
Aircraft industries should conduct independent cyber security audits. An effective audit will identify all of the necessary cyber security controls and document them. The audit findings will identify the issues that need to be addressed. These findings should then be prioritized and steps should be taken to mitigate the risks related to these findings.
There should be a clear framework set in place by the industry with domain-specific steps that can be used to mitigate and manage cyber threats.
A good cybersecurity framework should be based on five principles: identification, protection, detection, responding and recovery.
A proper cyber risk management framework should also take care of four basic elements: adequate infrastructure for monitoring and detection, the proper process of following the procedures, clear identified roles and responsibilities and built-in oversight and proper documentation.
There is great power and strength in teamwork. Aircraft industries must collaborate and come together to ensure there is safety in the industry. The industry should also work with other industries to share best practices, strengthen IT systems, and create a security-minded culture.
Supply partners and all involved stakeholders must work together as a team to develop trust so that they are able to identify and mitigate cyber risks.
