Cyber Security Schedule of Events

ATCA’s Aviation Cyber Security Day

Fairview Park Marriott – Falls Church, Virginia – June 28^th, 2012

The agenda for ATCA's Aviation Cyber Security Day is now available soon in both Word Doc and PDF formats. Download them below!

Word Document

PDF Format

The future National Airspace System (NAS) will be more interconnected and interdependent as user groups become increasingly reliant on data shared across both public and private information networks to optimize NextGen operations.  While this net-centric underpinning of NextGen will provide vast new capabilities, it will also result in a more complex and perhaps even unpredictable system of systems.  Understanding that a cyber threat cannot be eliminated but only deterred, what preparations can be implemented operationally and technically across NextGen to help mitigate the impact of a successful cyber attack?   Today’s ATCA Aviation Cyber Security Day assembles a group of aviation operations and cyber security experts to examine the cyber threats, mitigation strategies, operational response plans and programmatic implications associated with the NextGen data-sharing vision.

 

 

7:30 a.m. – 4 p.m.         Registration Open

 

7:30 a.m. – 8:30 a.m.    Welcome Coffee

 

8:30 a.m.                      Welcome/Opening Remarks

 

8:45 – 10 a.m.               Threat Panel

Threat to the Aviation Critical Infrastructure continues to build as ANSP’s move into an aviation service that relies on the aviation public sectors.  As a result, threats on one part of this community infrastructure are a threat on another and therefore a successful attack on one can have impact on another.  How should NextGen deal with this expansion of cyber threat to aviation availability?  What can be the strategy to create not only a technical understanding of system impact(s) but also operational service impact(s) thereby reducing the reaction time to intrusions on aviation? 

 

10 – 10:30 a.m.             Networking Break

 

10:30 – 11:45 a.m.        Programmatic Implications

As we continue down the road to implementing new equipment into a net-centric architecture for NextGen, there will be new ways and more ways that Cyber Terrorism can impact systems.  Comprehensive cyber mitigation plans are critical to understand the connections between risks at the network level and risks to NextGen mission objectives.  Once drafted, these plans could serve to drive automated decision-making and help manage threat response from identification through resolution while presenting real-time situational awareness. 

 

11:45 a.m. – 1:15 p.m.   Networking Lunch

 

1:15 – 2:30 p.m.            Avenues for Effective Mitigation of NextGen Cyber Threats

The Nation Airspace System (NAS) is currently comprised of many thousands of individual computers and application programs today and must be able to process countless alerts from sources throughout the enterprise and respond effectively with the most efficient mitigation plan while ensuring safety and operational effectiveness in the face of disruption.  Effective mitigation of NextGen cyber threats will enable rapid decision making critical to saving lives and protecting valuable NAS assets.  This panel will look at potential deficiencies in the new systems of NextGen and alternative methods of detection and protection.

 

2:30 – 3 p.m.                 Networking Break

 

3 – 4:15 p.m.                 Operations Panel

The FAA has defined nine implementation portfolios for delivering NextGen in the mid-term.  Improved Surface Operations is one of the key portfolios to achieving early benefits from NextGen and was cited as a major recommendation by RTCA Task Force 5. Success in this endeavor will require close collaboration among aircraft and operators, airport operations, air traffic control, and partners in industry. This can only be achieved through data sharing and improved access to NAS data. In order to support these surface operational concepts the community is adding additional surface surveillance systems, and implementing the NAS  Enterprise Gateway, Collaborative Information Exchange, SWIM, Tower Flight Data Manager, Collaborative Departure Queue Management, and Data Distribution Units. This environment creates challenges to ensure continuity of operations as information flows between fight operations centers, airport operations centers, and air traffic control systems.

 

4:15 p.m.                      Closing remarks

 

4:30 – 6 p.m.                 After Action Reception