FLUIT

Air traffic control (ATC) is responsible for communication, navigation and surveillance of air traffic. It protects air traffic from dangers and its responsibilities go beyond solely passenger traffic. Air freight is indispensable in today’s supply chains that, for example, secure the transport of vital medicines. This makes the ATC an attractive objective for cyberattacks – and evolving digitalization and networking are raising the threat level even more. In the near future, ATC IT systems are going to be exposed to the same cybersecurity threats facing Industry 4.0 or the Internet of Things. Unfortunately, there is a lack of legal IT security standards and/or rules.

We analyze the current IT security threat landscape of air traffic management systems inside ATCs and develop measures that suitably thwart the identified threats. To this end, the project members are developing a catalog of security criteria, best practices, new guidelines and methods that can be used as a baseline for an international standardization project.

The FZI is contributing its special expertise within the identification and analysis of security threats and the definition or recommendation of countermeasures.