Cybersecurity for Airports

Cybersecurity for airports is today more than ever a crucial issue. From protecting passengers and employees against acts of terrorism to enforcing governmental and local rules, airport security personnel must evolve in a fast-paced environment to mitigate security breaches and other critical security challenges.

Airport security is challenged by many different factors

As a matter of fact, airport security is ensured through a complex whole of security, safety, communications and building automation factors that include:

• strict regulations (such as the NIS Directive on security of network and information systems) and policies that need to be addressed
• ever-increasing need for operational efficiencies and reduction of operating costs
• sharing of crucial data with other airport departments such as customs, police and airport operations
• monitoring many different areas, i.e. airfields, hangars, terminals, parking areas, shops, restaurants, etc.
• managing a wide variety of different access authorizations
• protecting huge premises and extensive airport perimeters often located in residential or rural areas with poor lighting and limited means to monitor perimeter crossing, detect intrusion or potential breaches, filter out false alarms, detect object left behind, etc.

To compete and respond to these challenges, airports have raised their security relying on new innovations in IP-based video surveillance technology and advanced video analytics. Airport authorities have also enhanced their infrastructure to evolve in smart facilities. As airports have raised their security and infrastructure to new heights, new challenges have come up.

Airport security must face new IT and IoT challenges

New physical and cybersecurity challenges have indeed emerged due to the increased use of smart devices in airport facilities. As airports have now a variety of ICT applications operating within their perimeter, the needs for both physical security and cyber security have increased and become more complicated. Since cyber-attacks and incidental or malicious actions are new vulnerabilities in today’s airports, cybersecurity for airports has become a key enabler for safety.

Cybersecurity for Airports provided by provided by Vanguard NCM solution

Vanguard, Nelysis’s Network Cyber Management solution, was specifically designed to help critical infrastructures such as airports to protect people and assets throughout the world.

Nowadays airports require specialized cybersecurity solutions to meet elevated threat levels. Vanguard, unlike other advanced cybersecurity solutions, was specifically designed for physical and network security to detect, recognize and mitigate incidental or malicious threats.

The unique selling points of this solution for cybersecurity for airports include:

• Vanguard is a patent-based system designed by developers with in-depth experience in technological systems for the physical security world.
• Vanguard provides cybersecurity protection for the the airport network (including IoT devices like perimeter sensors, access control devices, CCTV cameras, alarm and fire detection devices) without disrupting the integrity of the physical security and control networks.
• Vanguard protects the airport operational continuity because it warns and prevents against any sabotage or manipulation of any of security devices.
• Vanguard provides seamless IT/ security management reducing human factor mistakes. The system identifies and visualizes all the network elements to detect and identify behavior anomalies comparing the events against the initial baseline profile and presenting the network at a both logical and physical level. The security staff receives information and scoring rate about the different edge devices or sub-systems based on values such as the manufacturer name, the running operating system and firmware version, the used protocols and bandwidth, the number of flows, the IP address, the MAC address, the physical port on the network switch, etc.
• Since it is not based on digital signatures, Vanguard is able to detect new threats.
• Vanguard was designed for closed LANs (air gapped networks) and specifically optimized for Security IoT devices.
• Vanguard allows to store several months of traffic information for fast and easy built-in post-event analysis.

For more information on Vanguard solution for Cybersecurity for Airports