EasyJet, one of UK’s largest budget airlines disclosed to its customers in March that a massive data breach had taken place, affecting nine million of its customers and involving over 2,000 credit-card details. EasyJet now reports it has been the target of a "highly sophisticated" attack, which provided hackers with access to customers' email addresses and 2,208 credit-card details. EasyJet's data breach dwarfs a 2018 British Airways data breach, which was fined $225m last year by the Information Commissioner's Office under Europe's General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). The airline industry is already facing major challenges as many aircraft carriers are facing service disruptions due to the pandemic. Additionally, there is a legal battle being fought in courts by the directors of the carriers over business strategy approaches. The latest hack signals how imperative it is for enterprise airlines to ensure Infosecurity best practices are put in place in order to avoid future devastating data breaches from taking place. The industry as a whole lacks strict requirements to prevent such incidents or even adhere to specific cybersecurity standards.
Aviation Security Challenges
With one of the most integrated and complex information and communications technology (ICT) systems, the aviation industry faces threats on a number of fronts with its increasing interconnectivity. From data theft to national and political motivations, today’s aviation industry faces multiple cyber risks on a multi-front war. Common threats to the aviation industry include, but are not limited to:
Phishing Attacks
Last year the Center for Internet Security reported that 75 US airports were the targets of advanced persistent threats.
Jamming Attacks
Jamming attacks occur when an attacker injects a ghost flight into the air traffic control system.
Remote Hijacking
Security flaws in the software and hardware used for communication in the aviation industry allows hackers to remotely attack or control in-flight and on-board systems.
DDoS and Botnet Attacks
Distributed-denial-of-service attacks utilize botnets of compromised networks to flood air traffic control and other critical systems, resulting in the platform crashing.
Wi-Fi-based Attacks
Vulnerabilities in a plane’s onboard system could allow hackers to use the onboard Wi-Fi signal or in-flight entertainment systems to hack into the plane’s avionics equipment.
HSM for Aviation
The increased wave of security concerns for airlines has continued to ripple across the aviation industry. The growing consensus among security experts outlines the need for air-tight security solutions that will address the threat of malicious hacking attempts and data theft. HUB Security’s next-gen HSM offers excellent performance military-grade key management and cryptographic solutions built on FPGAs which can handle more data per second than traditional CPU based HSMs. enabling safeguard against massive attacks of novel and critical cyber threats in cloud and enterprise industries. HUB Security’s combination of hardware and software solutions includes ultra-secure internal signing authorization flow. Designed with a multi-signature vault, hardware firewall, access control, and a deep neural network learning system, HUB Security’s HSM is built to anticipate and prevent unique aviation attacks.
