50% of all phishing attempts are made against airlines and on average, 80,000 suspicious connections are blocked daily, IATA says.
IATA chief, Tony Tyler, has told conference delegates that damage from airline security-breaches or data theft can leave a company’s reputation “in tatters”, and that a successful cyber-attack on an airline “could paralyse operations and result in thousands of stranded passengers,” citing the most recent attack just weeks ago against LOT Polish Airlines.
“No business is immune, but aviation is a specific target for those intent on doing cyber mischief and theft – or worse,” Tyler said, eturbonews transcript stated.
“Airlines are the highest value target for fraudsters and close to 50% of all phishing attempts are made against airlines and airline passengers, according to one cyber security firm with which we work.”
According to Tyler, IATA operates global financial systems flowing some $388 billion of air travel related revenues annually, and has set in place systems to guard its IT operations to “eliminate vulnerabilities for potential cyber theft or malicious attacks”.
“Actions to protect our systems occur against an ever growing and evolving cyber threat.”
Tyler said in March IATA identified and blocked an average of 80,000 suspicious connections per day, detected and cleared 891 viruses and resisted five “brute forcing” attempts to connect to IATA accounts.
“Cyber-attacks are a fact of modern life. But aviation presents a special target for those who seek to damage or disrupt the integrated air transport network upon which the global economy depends,” Tyler said.
Latest statistics reveal this year alone aviation will connect 3.5 billion travellers with nearly 100,000 flights per day across 51,000 routes. Aviation and related tourism represents 58 million jobs and US$2.2 trillion of GDP, Tyler said.
“We can contribute even more in the future—as long as we maintain the trust we have earned from travellers and shippers that flying is safe and getting safer,” he said.
“Safety is the top priority for everyone associated with aviation. We do not compete when it comes to safety and we must take the same working together approach in addressing cyber-threats.”
Last year IATA launched the Aviation Cyber Security Toolkit to run internal analysis of current cyber risks to help security stakeholders identify ways to protect IT infrastructure and is expected to launch a second version this year.
“It is intended for airlines but is also applicable to airports, ground handlers and others in the value chain. It is an essential part of our strategy to bolster cyber security,” Tyler said.
