Cyber security challenges in aviation communication, navigation, and surveillance

Abstract As the aviation sector becomes digitized and increasingly reliant on wireless technology, so has its attractiveness to cyber attackers including nation-state actors and terrorists. For example, vulnerabilities in the broad range of interconnected devices and (sub)systems, their implementations, as well as design flaws, can be exploited to carry out nefarious activities. Therefore, in this paper we review the existing literature to understand the diverse attack vectors associated with communication, navigation, and surveillance systems, and how some of these security issues can be mitigated. Although a number of survey and review articles have analyzed various wireless technologies in aviation, to the best of our knowledge, no work has systematically analyzed them from communication, navigation and surveillance perspectives collectively. Furthermore, we present potential software defined radio (SDR)-based attacks targeting popular wireless technologies. Based on our in-depth review, we highlight existing limitations and discuss potential research opportunities.