Research Action on Aviation Resilience – Cybersecurity Threat Landscape

Research Action on Aviation Resilience - Cybersecurity Threat Landscape

The European Commission published the amended Horizon Europe Work Programme 2023-24 on 31 March 2023. The overall driver of Cluster 5 – “Climate, Energy and Mobility” is to accelerate the green and digital transition, and the associated transformation of the economy, industry and society to achieve climate neutrality in Europe by 2050.

This cluster contains seven research actions, which have been delegated to EASA as contracting authority including an action on Aviation Resilience – Cybersecurity Threat Landscape.

The objective of this research action is to identify cybersecurity threats having potential negative impact on the safety of flight operations.

The scope should consider connected systems (airborne and ground) dependant on external digital signals for:

•  Position Navigation and Time (PNT) services
•  Digital communication
•  Flight control
•  System management (installation, update, maintenance, decommission)

Required output

• Identification of critical assets
• List of cybersecurity threat scenarios with a potential harmful impact on aviation safety 
• Risk assessment
• Summary of threat impacts and its potential harmful impacts to safety that should be considered by authorities and organisations by order of priority
• When available, preventive and mitigative barriers, either by security or safety measures, including operational ones, that would ensure resilience to the identified threats. This may imply proposal for new research objectives.

Tentative timelines:

• Publication of the tender document: Q3/2023
• Contract signature/start: Q1/2024
• Contract duration: 24 months

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Important notice:

The call for tender will be issued ahead of the conclusion of the Contribution Agreement between the European Union, represented by the European Commission, and EASA. The conclusion of the aforementioned Contribution Agreement is a prerequisite for the award of any contract resulting from this tender procedure.

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This project will be funded from the European Union's Horizon Europe research and innovation programme.