Aviation Security

 Cybersecurity is an emerging kind of sabotage, and it can even lead to an airplane hijack, which is the scariest and deadliest security threat in aviation. TSA stands for Transportation Security Administration and is the security agency that ensures and protects the nation’s transportation systems to ensure the free moment of people.

Hijacks are done to cause an event, accident, or incident, or to be use as mass murder weapon, bringing terror to civilians and industry. In 2018, officers detected approximately 4,432 firearms at airport checkpoints, averaging 11 firearms per day (TSA, 2022). Thanks to TSA most of these didn’t end up as events because it was caught before it was a catastrophic event. Cybersecurity is as important as screening passenger, because cyberattacks can delay flights, create fake boarding or precheck. If there is not enough cybersecurity in airlines and airports it can also allow hackers to affect the safety of the flight.

Aviation security is almost threated every day, and TSA has 20 integrated components called the Layers of Security (TSA, 2017) to identify potential threats. TSA screens more than 2 million passengers daily and over 750 million every year (TSA, 2022).

The first layer of security includes the No-Fly List and passenger and employee Pre-Screening to match the passenger and personnel with this type of lists. Terrorism can have any nationality, and appearance. Second is surveillance, identify suspicious people. This is achieved with security, cameras, airport personnel, and even a civilian can help protect the security of an airfield. Third, the screening of personal belonging. This layer, check mostly for weapons and explosive materials.  It has critical infrastructure against future cybersecurity threats (TSA, 2022).

If none of these layers of security is able to catch a possible hijacker, the last layer are the Air Marshall, flight crew and Law Enforcement Officer (LEO). The layers of TSA security have been doing great job to mitigate this so far, implementing psychological screening to employees could be a recommendation for improvement, since that is the weakest link in security. Also, the first layer, which is identification of a person is not enough now a days when a new passport can be bought in the dark web, biometric cameras should be used at airports to identify fugitives. And new technologies should be added to protect the cybersecurity and avoid hackers.

 

TSA (August, 2017) Inside Look: TSA Layers of Security. Retrieved https://www.tsa.gov/blog/2017/08/01/inside-look-tsa-layers-security

 

TSA (January, 2022). TSA highlights the top 21 accomplishments in transportation security to close out 2021.  Retrieved from https://www.tsa.gov/news/press/releases/2022/01/18/tsa-highlights-top-21-accomplishments-transportation-security-close

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