Security Issues in Automatic Dependent Surveillance - Broadcast (ADS-B): A Survey

Abstract

As a new generation of air transportation surveillance technology, the automatic dependent surveillance - broadcast (ADS-B) system mainly completes the extraction and processing of the position information and other additional information of the aviation aircraft to form a clear and intuitive background map and trajectory. However, ADS-B broadcasts information via open and unencrypted protocols, it is vulnerable to deliberate intrusions and attacks, which poses a great security risk. This paper studies the security issues of the ADS-B system in information leakage and tampering. Starting from the vulnerability of the ADS-B system, it is divided into vulnerability based on attack intention and vulnerability based on security requirements. Various solutions for solving vulnerabilities from two aspects, secure location authentication, and secure broadcast authentication are proposed, and the solutions are compared in terms of security and feasibility. The research results show that a single solution does not fully protect the security of the ADS-B system. For example, the PKI (Public Key Infrastructure) technology and the SS (Spread Spectrum) technology can resist most attacks, but there are still deficiencies. Therefore, this paper proposes to propose a multi-layered security framework in future research work, which includes detecting and preventing different attacks in the ADS-B system.

Keywords

• Automatic dependent surveillance - broadcast (ADS-B)
• security
• vulnerability
• authentication
• protection