Aviation Cybersecurity: Enhanced Air Safety Requires FAA to Better Mitigate Threats to Aircraft Communications

Filed 51m ago · Via GAO · The Buffoon Desk

THIS STORY IS SCORED

Sneaky

Kevin MacLeod · incompetech.com · CC BY 4.0

Photo: Forest and Kim Starr · CC BY 3.0 us · via Wikimedia Commons

A GAO report finds the FAA has identified spectrum-based threats to the National Airspace System, including spoofing and jamming, but hasn't completed risk assessments, updated security documentation, or built real-time monitoring to catch these attacks as they happen. The FAA oversees air traffic services for more than 44,000 flights and 3 million passengers daily.

GAO found FAA fully addressed only two of eight leading collaboration practices with other agencies and industry partners, and hasn't set up formal information-sharing procedures outside interagency groups. Separately, text-based communication apps used by pilots and controllers remain vulnerable to interception and spoofing, including fraudulent flight-clearance cancellations, due to weak authentication and encryption.

GAO issued nine recommendations; the Department of Transportation, responding for FAA, agreed with all of them, which is the easy part.

The full dispatch is available from the source below.

✒ FROM THE EDITORIAL DESK

An agency that can only find out about a spoofing attack after someone reports it isn't running security, it's running a suggestion box. Forty-four thousand flights a day is a lot of trust to place in a system that admits it's watching the rearview mirror instead of the road. Agreeing with nine recommendations costs nothing; building the monitoring tools costs money, which is usually where these stories go quiet.

Source: Read the original at GAO → Scored: Sneaky · Kevin MacLeod · CC BY 4.0

Read it scored.

Every story, every clown, every kazoo — in your pocket. Music plays automatically. Regret is optional.

GET IT ON iOS GET IT ON ANDROID

OR FOLLOW THE DESK ON BLUESKY →