TECH TALK
CYBERSECURITY STANDARDS FOR AIRCRAFT TO IMPROVE RESILIENCE ACT
OF 2016 OR THE CYBER AIR ACT This bill directs the Department of Transportation (DOT) to require domestic or foreign air carriers and manufacturers of aircraft or electronic control, communications, maintenance, or ground support systems for aircraft to disclose to the FAA any attempted or successful cyberattack against any system on board an aircraft or against any maintenance or ground support system for aircraft. The FAA shall use the information obtained through such disclosures to: (1) improve the regulations (to be
prescribed by DOT) to incorporate requirements relating to cybersecurity into the requirements for obtaining an air carrier operating certificate or a production certificate; and (2) notify air carriers, aircraft manufacturers and other federal agencies of cybersecurity vulnerabilities in systems on board an aircraft or maintenance or ground support systems for aircraft. In prescribing such regulations, DOT must require: (1) all entry points to the electronic systems of each
aircraft operating in U.S. airspace and maintenance or ground support systems for such aircraft to be equipped with reasonable measures to protect against cyberattacks; and (2) the periodic evaluation of, and updates to, such measures for security vulnerabilities using best security practices. The FAA must report to Congress annually on attempted and successful cyberattacks against any system on
board an aircraft and against maintenance or ground support systems for aircraft. The Commercial Aviation Communications Safety and Security Leadership Group shall: (1) be responsible for
evaluating the cybersecurity vulnerabilities of certain broadband wireless communications equipment designed for consumer use on board aircraft; and (2) require the implementation by air carriers, manufacturers, and communications service providers of technical and operational security measures it deems necessary to prevent cyberattacks that exploit such equipment.
WHAT THIS MEANS FOR THE
AVIATION COMMUNITY While the language in the Reauthorization Bill is a narrower version of the Cyber AIR Act, it does force action by the FAA by identifying several deadlines, which we will cover. By March 2017, the FAA shall
have a comprehensive and strategic framework of principles and policies to reduce cybersecurity risks to the national airspace system, civil aviation, and agency information systems. This framework will be something that will be developed and coordinated with industry and will undoubtedly build upon many of the efforts already underway at ARINC, RTCA, and various other industry groups. The FAA needs to be careful here, since the industry is already drowning in various guidelines, standards and best practices, so adding new regulations which do not build upon whatever already exists (outside of those which
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will be superseded or which do not provide value) will simply defeat the purpose of the framework. Commercial companies can barely keep up with all of the committees and working groups as it is.
What remains to be seen is how this framework will defined. Will it be a subset with industry-specific language that uses already-defined National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) or the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) guidelines? According to Alan Gallagher, president, Virtual Security International (VSI), “NIST and ISO were very similar in the details, just different categories. The security controls listed in ISO/IEC 27002 have been mapped to the security controls of the NIST Special Publication 800-53 in Appendix A and vice versa in Appendix B. One of the major differences in the organization of security controls
is that the ISO/IEC 27001 has a category (objective) specifically for Security Policy, whereas the NIST SP 800-53 does not. The SP 800-53 has a security policy control for every category (family) of controls. It is always the first control listed in any family of controls, hence the xx-1 reference.”
Domestic U.S. firms typically use NIST, whereas globally- focused or foreign firms prefer ISO. Let’s not get into ARINC and RTCA versus EUROCAE (the European Organisation for Civil Aviation Equipment), since all of these overlap to a degree, and have working relationships (but there are differences). Confused yet? It is not as bad as is sounds, since you have a small group of experts who typically participate on many committees across various groups, so the information- sharing is often good. Part of the task outlined in the bill is to identify cybersecurity risks
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