Story ID: 117June
Bizav Security Conference Explores Risk Management
By: Curt Epstein
Caption: The organization's second annual Security conference held this year in Dallas looked at a variety of threats to business aviation clients and crews.
Word Count: 221
Defending against cyber intrusions is a key security concern for business aviation. That was the message last month at NBAA’s second annual Security Conference held in Dallas. Much sensitive information is transferred through the satellite communication systems on business aircraft, and to protect that data, the onboard systems should be configured to allow only certain portable devices operated by the passengers and crew to access the network, according to Keith Turpin, chief information security officer with Universal Weather & Aviation.  

Doug Young, GogGo’s vice president for software architecture, noted that many larger flight departments have added information technology specialists to help harden their systems against cyber attacks, and warns that users shouldn’t be lulled into a false sense of security when using a VPN. He suggests that flight departments perform threat assessments for all the different types of traffic that their principals might conduct in the back of the aircraft, as different activities may have different risk-mitigation techniques. Another trend he has noted is that of flight departments and company IT departments performing their own vulnerability studies of vendor equipment. In terms of air-to-ground data transfer, over areas such as Russia and China, flight departments should assume that the system is compromised and refrain from transmitting sensitive materials, Young advised.

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