EBAA Safety Summit 2023 & Cybersecurity

EBAA Safety Summit 2023 & Cybersecurity

The EBAA Annual Safety Summit took place in Cologne on the 14th and 15th of November 2023. More than 80 aviation professionals from all over Europe and beyond came together with the aim of sharing their insights on a number of challenges regarding aviation safety.

The cybersecurity team of EASA had a strong presence in this event actively participating in 2 of its panels during the course of the event.

In the panel “Cybersecurity: Spotlight on GPS Spoofing”, Cyrille Rosay, EASA Senior Expert in Cybersecurity in Aviation presented the current situation on GNSS interference and the associated risks as well as some EASA initiatives to counter these challenges that seem to affect mostly business jets. Conflicts and geopolitical tensions in the airspace of various countries have led to an increase in the reported cases of spoofing and jamming in recent years thus sparkling a lot of interest on this topic by the aviation community.

The next panel had the topic of “Compliance is not protection: Cybersecurity in business aviation” as a reminder to the fact that adhering to regulations is important but not necessarily sufficient to protect business aviation from persistent and ever-evolving cybersecurity threats. The Section Manager of the Cybersecurity in Aviation & Emerging Risks Section of EASA, Gian Andrea Bandieri and the EASA Senior Expert in Cybersecurity in Aviation, Davide Martini were the only panel members in a session moderated by Andrew Douglas, Founder of Make Tech Fly that came up with an innovative way to draw the attention of the attendees to the topic.

You are never 100% protected. The regulation introduces the means to be resilient to cyber-attacks and to mitigate any damage in a controlled way. By applying the regulation you cannot eliminate the possibility of being attacked so (organisations) should not only aim on how to achieve merely compliance but (should aim towards achieving) real protection.   

           – Davide Martini, Senior Expert in Cybersecurity in Aviation, EASA

What are your views on those topics?

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