Characteristics of IPS Control Plane Data And Security Consideration

Abstract

The aviation Internet Protocol (IP) network will be comprised of manned and unmanned aircraft, ground infrastructure, air to ground access network service providers, Air Navigation Service Providers (ANSP), content provider networks, OEM networks, airline and operator networks and devices, and supporting infrastructure (includes PKI, mobility and management etc.). There will be a full range of applications and protocols that will adopt and exploit the aviation IP network. It is key to understand the security and performance characteristics of the aviation IP networks. Many of the applications, services and protocols that could drive deployment of Internet Protocol Suite (IPS) networking in aviation can only be developed if control and management planes of the network will be secure. Yet, to really understand these properties we need studies of the whole aviation IP network's control and management plane interfaces and sub interfaces protection and security, which are difficult to obtain. To date most studies have not been completed in this area, or the analyses have been conducted using unrealistic network mobility models. To address this issue, we present an extensive analysis of an aviation IP network control and management plane's security in the context of mobility generated by both air to ground and ground to ground systems. We combined control plane and management plane data security to address the aviation IP network security issues and explore the security provision mechanisms to protect aviation critical infrastructure. Hence, this analysis and security mechanisms are a more accurate representation of future aviation IP networks, since it reflects the realistic aviation network eco-system. We analyzed the network to identify and characterize the key properties starting from the characteristics of the aircraft movement and dependency on the IP network control and management plane's security framework. We then explored the security issus related to the IPS control and management planes and evaluated how the security issue impact the design space for deployment.