Page 42 - AAA SEPTEMBER - OCOTBER 2017 Online Magazine

COLUMN JEFF CASS

Safe travels

How blockchain and cloud can reinforce cyber security in
commercial aviation

Cyber-Attacks – Not If, but When international airlines to meet, having to cope
Like most industry segments, airlines are with different data compliance laws across
quickly realising that threats are just as country borders. This has implications on
likely to come from inside the organization data storage, a lot of which is now being held
as from outside. Cyber-attacks have been in the cloud. Companies that don’t have strict
reported at airports across the world, and it policies in place, lack data access controls or
seems only a matter of time before we see use legacy IT systems will struggle to keep
an attack on a major airline. their data secure.
In response to this threat, many
commercial aviation organizations are Blue Sky Thinking Jeff Cass is Vice President, Strategy at the
actively hiring Chief Security Officers and, Cloud solutions are a vital tool in the new Aviation & Defence Business Unit at IFS
according to a SITA Airline IT Trends Survey, airline IT landscape, especially when dealing
the number of airlines which said they were with scheduled and unscheduled aircraft
advancing preparations to manage cyber maintenance. Having mobile devices variety of businesses, from original
risks has almost doubled to 91 percent in wirelessly connected to software and data equipment manufacturers and Tier 1
the space of three years. in the cloud frees up personnel from having suppliers to airlines, airports and 3rd
With more IoT-enabled sensors being to physically or electronically store manuals party MRO providers. This presents an
used, it’s actually the newer aircraft and documents. Powerful and easy-to-use interesting dilemma because not only
fleets which have a higher chance of mobile applications are now available to help do you need to secure and protect data
being attacked, many of which can be ill- decipher the mountains of data available, accumulated from each party, you also
equipped to prevent unauthorised access. finally leveraging the elusive “return on need to be able to share it across this
Increasingly being used for things such as experience” to support mechanics in real- broad supply chain.
passenger Wi-Fi, real-time air-to-ground time. Blockchain technology is emerging
communications are evolving to support This also helps with compliance during for this very purpose. In a Blockchain,
mission critical functions such as inflight inspections, as data on portable tools can each record or ‘block’ of data has its
fuel adjustments and aircraft health be easily recorded. A cornerstone principal own timestamp and is encrypted with
monitoring, both of which could severely in aviation compliance is having that second credentials in a peer-to-peer relationship,
disrupt airlines if compromised. set of eyes. Allowing data to be shared which makes malicious tampering
The safeguarding of data has become across organisations lowers the potential extremely difficult. All ‘blocks’ are linked
a major challenge for airlines, one that for errors as there is no longer the time to the previous block of data, meaning the
threatens to disrupt key practices for the lag and inaccuracy that workers have been only way to tamper with its content is to
entire industry. accustomed to from paper records. have the entire network of trusted peer-
The new generation of cloud solutions can to-peer contributors collude to corrupt
Compliance A Top Priority be set up in their own separate environments, the chain.
From passenger information at check- which today have the potential to be far Blockchain is still some way off being
in desks to engine health data and more secure than any previous private or on widely adopted, and is just a concept for
maintenance history, airlines collect huge premise data center. As the name suggests, airlines right now, but the technology has real
amounts of data. The corruption or loss of cloud containers create isolated boundaries potential to help boost cyber defences.
any of this information can pose serious of data which means that if anything goes
safety and regulatory issues. Storing wrong in one container, it only affects that
information means airlines must adhere single cell and not the entire system – helping
to compliance regulations, such as PCI- reduce the threat of a wider cyber-attack.
DSS for customer payment data which
states that information must be protected Blockchain Will Help Redefine
against unauthorized access and accidental Cyber Security
loss. These regulations are even harder for The aviation supply chain covers a wide
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