SecureWorld News

Airlines are Becoming More and More Digital. But How Secure are They?

Written by SecureWorld News Team | Wed | Oct 12, 2016 | 7:00 AM Z

The consequences of a cyber attack on an airline or even a single airplane would be catastrophic. 

Fast Company Explains:

Since the start of last year, major airlines including UnitedAmericanDeltaSouthwest, and JetBlue have all seen flights delayed or canceled due to on-the-ground computer issues.

And while none of the outages have been linked to deliberate sabotage, it's likely that hackers do probe aviation systems looking for potential vulnerabilities, whether in ticketing systems, air traffic control networks, or computer systems onboard planes, experts say.

"We don’t have a lot [of hacker attempts] in the airline systems yet where they’ve been successful," says Mickey Roach, a partner at PricewaterhouseCoopers who works with cybersecurity issues. "We know that they’re trying."