How Airlines Can Navigate Rising Cybersecurity Threats

Just as every coin has two sides, technological advancements have also paved the way for advanced cybercrimes, with the global economy expected to suffer a loss of more than $10 trillion in 2025. We have seen how just one cyberattack could ground numerous flights in Heathrow, Brussels, and Berlin airports, causing hours of delay and leaving thousands of passengers and airport staff in disarray. The extent of financial losses suffered and passenger data breach (if any) are yet to be seen.

In the last couple of years, there have been numerous reported instances of cyberattacks targeting the aviation industry including Japan Airlines, American Airlines, Hawaiian Airlines, Qantas, as well as passenger data breach at SITA (technology solution provider for many airlines). The aviation industry has clearly garnered the attention of cybercriminals across the globe.

Aviation: The New Battleground for Cybercriminals

Cyber criminals are increasingly targeting critical infrastructure, especially in industries such as healthcare, banking, telecom, transport, and manufacturing. These sectors share common vulnerabilities: they handle large volumes of sensitive customer data, rely on third party vendors and partners, and operate through interconnected digital operations. This creates a complex and attractive attack surface for threat actors.

Besides multiple cyberattacks on railways, ports, and logistics firms, the focus has shifted towards airlines and airports. Aviation is one of the most advanced sectors with strong emphasis on customer experience and personalization. It has a huge volume of:

• Customer data: Airlines record a large amount of customer data to provide personalized services, offers, and recommendations. This includes passport details, travel history, and co-traveler information. Stolen passport records are used for elaborate scams, and identity thefts.
• Financial data: With most flight bookings now happening online, airlines store payment and banking information, making them prime targets for financial fraud.
• Loyalty rewards: Airline reward programs are monetizable assets for hackers. An estimated $1 billion worth of travel rewards is stolen annually, making them a lucrative target.

This industry relies on integrated operations and interconnected vendor ecosystems. Compromising a single touch point is enough to disrupt the entire chain of operations.

How Cyber Criminals Attack

To target large-scale organizations, hackers often use ransomware, a type of malware that locks or encrypts an enterprise’s critical systems or data, significantly disrupting operations and sometimes, causing complete shutdown. Once the ransom is paid, the hackers decrypt the files.

This ransomware can be planted through various means including email phishing, infected external devices, or hacking into systemic flaws. Advanced methods include drive-by downloads, malvertising, and network spreading that download and spread the ransomware without any human consent or intervention. Hackers are leveraging AI and GenAI to write more sophisticated codes, mimic communications, and more.

In the recent case of involving European airports, hackers infiltrated Collins Aerospace Systems provides MUSE software to airports for check-in and baggage systems. The airports were forced to cancel flights and handle remaining departures with delays due to manual (paper-pen) check-in of passengers. By hacking just one firm, the hackers managed to disrupt operations of multiple airports, including Heathrow airport in London, Brussels airport in Belgium, and Berlin in Germany. It was recently confirmed to be a ransomware attack.

5 Key Strategies for Building Cyber Defenses in The Skies

In cybersecurity, prevention is always better than cure. Here are five key strategies that the aviation industry and other vulnerable sectors can adopt and take a proactive and preventive stance:

• Modernized legacy systems: Outdated infrastructure provides easy entry points for attackers. Working with latest software and keeping it updated is an imperative. Timely security patches and upgrades eliminate vulnerabilities that can be attacked.
• Zero trust policy: It basically means not to trust any device that is trying to connect with your network or system, irrespective of who it belongs to. Every access needs to be authenticated and authorized. To create stringent access control, one may get rid of VPNs and implement Zero Trust Network Access (ZTNA) solution for giving access to critical aviation systems.
• Network segmentation: As we know that hackers continue to dig deeper into the systems once they get entry into the network. This can be countered by creating network segmentation. This breaks down a large network into smaller segments and sometimes micro-segments to improve efficiency, traffic flow and limit lateral movement in case of a cyber-attack. One can protect the entire network from being compromised.
• Real-time monitoring: Ironically, the technology that empowers cybercriminals can also be used to fight them. Real-time monitoring leveraging intrusion detection systems (IDS), powered by AI and machine learning monitor the digital environment for anomalies in real-time, alerting potential breaches or attempts in the early stages.
• Employee awareness: Employees need to be educated on how hackers gain access to enterprise networks. Regular briefings, phishing simulations, and clear policies on device usage and downloads keeping them updated on recent events, tactics used and how it could have been avoided. Employees being able to identify phishing emails, harmful downloads, can make significant difference.

Airlines across the globe will need to keep navigating these evolving cyber threats. Through collaboration, shared intelligence and strategic partnerships, the industry has been making strides in resilience. This collective effort, along with support from government and research bodies, may have significantly curbed cyberattacks, but the battle is far from over. With technology rapidly advancing on both sides, airlines must gain the upper hand to continue to secure the clear skies.