Aerospace and Electronic Systems Magazine November 2017 - 3

DOI. No. 10.1109/MAES.2017.171101

From the Editors of the Special Issue on Cyber
Security in Aerospace
Kathleen Kramer, William P. Walsh, Erik Theunissen

his issue marks the first of a two-part Special Issue on Cyber Security in Aerospace for the IEEE Aerospace &
Electronics Systems Magazine. Cyber security is an increasing worry on many fronts, but typical discussions and
headlines focus on very different types of threats than those experienced by aviation and space systems. Cyber
security vulnerabilities compromise the control, traffic, navigation, and integrity of these systems. Countermeasures
involve not only specialized systems and architectures, but often international cooperation, as the need for awareness
extends well beyond the boundaries of a single aircraft. The global impact of aviation and aerospace, in both manned
and unmanned systems, the dramatic safety issues involved, and its aging legacy processes and systems, lead to particularly complex, multi-level, but interdependent, systems of air, land and space.
Five articles comprise part I of Special Issue on Cyber Security in Aerospace for the IEEE Aerospace & Electronics
Systems Magazine, with part 2 of 2 scheduled for February 2018:
Highly relevant work is being done in international projects, including the Single European Sky ATM Research
(SESAR) initiative. In this issue, we begin with an article (Asgari - "Provisioning for a Distributed ATM Security
Management: the GAMMA Approach") that looks at the Global ATM security management (GAMMA) project, its
vision of a more complete security management and its relation to the systems for air traffic management and control
Kathleen Kramer
provided by initiatives such as SESAR. A second article (Bilzhause - "Datalink Security in the L-band Digital Aeronautical Communication System LDACS for Air Traffic Management") then considers security of SESAR from a
datalink level where its developing L-band Digital Aeronautical Communications System (LDACS) is a key element
of increasing air traffic capacity without separate specifications for cyber security. The outcomes of a threat analysis
of LDACS and the question of additional layers of security is introduced.
A third article (Osechas - "Addressing Vulnerabilities of the CNS Infrastructure to Targeted Radio Interference")
has a focus at a different level on radio vulnerability. They consider communication, navigation and surveillance (CNS)
by considering radio vulnerabilities of related signal for these systems, including those of the global navigation satellite system (GNSS). The article provides considerations with respect to targeted efforts such jamming and spoofing
increasingly enabled with software defined radio and on how safety can be improved in the design of future systems.
The final two articles (Leonardi - "ADS-B Jamming Mitigation: A Solution Based on a Multichannel Receiver")
and (Kim - "ADS-B Vulnerabilities and a Security Solution with a Timestamp") are concerned with a major focus of
security concern in aerospace: the vulnerabilities of the automatic dependent surveillance-broadcast (ADS-B) system.
ADS-B's increasing use is expected not just for the FAA's NextGen, but is part of the plans for systems, including
William P. Walsh
across the rest of North America and in Europe. This surveillance broadcast system was developed on the assumption of cooperating open broadcasts to provide identity, position and status information for cooperating aircraft. Both
articles consider the need for greater attention to safety and security of its channel that was developed without significant regard for cyber security. One proposes a solution in the form of a multichannel receiver another considers a
timestamp-based solution.
This marks the first time the Aerospace & Electronics Systems Society's Technical Operations Panel on Cyber
Security panel has collaborated on a special issue. A major goal of this effort was to channel the special expertise and
interests of the panel into a collaboration that provides an important technical perspective not well addressed in other
cyber security related efforts and publications. The purpose is to showcase practical efforts and meaningful security
insights for these very complex systems, along with some new results and some proposals on solutions.
In addition to the open call, the effort on this special issue brought together experts at two different IEEE AESS
conferences in an effort to approach the questions from two directions: the 35th Digital Avionics Systems Conference
(DASC) and the 50th International Carnahan Conference on Security Technology (ICCST). At the DASC, panelists
considered how best to apply insights and solutions related to its core topics of avionics and air traffic management
(ATM) specifically involving and applying cyber security concerns. Just a month later, the panel also met at ICCST to
Erik Theunissen
consider the same questions, with very different participants, starting instead from a security technology perspective
and looking for ways it was interesting and beneficially applied to specialized systems involved in avionics and ATM.
The five articles of this part I cover this important topic in terms of multiple levels and systems and represent truly international collaborations and perspectives on cyber security for aerospace, avionics, and air traffic management. We look forward to completing this Special Issue part II in February 2018.

NOVEMBER 2017

IEEE A&E SYSTEMS MAGAZINE

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Aerospace and Electronic Systems Magazine November 2017