Multi-Aspect Security Assessment of Airport Computer Networks

Abstract

Future airport computer network systems will provide advanced services to passengers, airlines, and maintenance personnel such as ubiquitous wireless access to critical services and increased physical security monitoring capabilities. To enable such advancements, different services will share the same support infrastructure such as hosts, wired and wireless networks, and access credentials. However, such integration will dramatically increase the complexity of airport networks. As the system complexity increases, manually analyzing the interconnections between components, their states and configurations to detect errors is going to be a challenge. Errors in configurations of components (e.g., firewalls or access credential) can create conditions that allow malicious users to potentially compromise systems and damage the infrastructure. This paper presents an architecture for security analysis suited for complex airport cyber-physical networks. Airport computer networks pose a challenge to the traditional IT security analyses: airport systems are heterogeneous entities created by the interconnections of multiple systems such as operation support systems for airlines and control networks for runway lights and distribution of fuel. This work provides a guide for the design of future cyber-security systems that can support the work of airport security officers in evaluating and maintaining the security of complex airport network systems. he infrastructure of airports heavily depends upon computer systems to operate. Networked computer systems provide the infrastructure for the operations of airlines throughout the terminal, provide wireless connectivity to passengers and maintenance personnel, and support the operations of the airport physical infrastructure. Runway lights, distribution of fuel, physical security monitoring, and distribution of electric power are all controlled remotely through network connections. In the future, the reliance upon automatic systems is even going to increase, as demands for an efficient infrastructure are leading to the integration of multiple systems with the use of computer networks. As airports are part of the critical infrastructure of a nation, maintaining the security of their operations is a priority. This paper introduces a distributed architecture for detecting cyber-security problems caused by errors in the configurations of the networked systems that support the airport operations. We propose a solution that integrates cyber-security with the physical characteristics of the infrastructure, and we propose a distributed architecture that matches the systems-of-systems structure of the airport infrastructure. While a large amount of work has been focused on creating physical security measures to protect the airport infrastructure, concerns about cyber-security problems are more recent. For example, a study