Serious Game for Cyberattack Evaluation

Air Traffic Controller Cyberattack Evaluation Serious Game (ACES)

Campos Basin Tower

Problem Statement

Disruption to the Campos Basin helicopter operations has the potential to severely disrupt and even bring production at the oceanic fields to a halt.  Safe and continuous operation of helicopters supporting offshore oil production is critical to meet production capabilities and protect against loss of life or assets.

 

ADS-B communication is unencrypted and unauthenticated; anyone can listen to it and decode the transmissions from aircraft in real time. ADS-B does not make use of data level authentication of data from aircrafts, only checksums are use to verify integrity of a submitted message.

 

ADS-B communication can be attacked through interception of messages, jamming of transmission, and injection of messages. The target of ADS-B attacks can be generally grouped into two categories: aircrafts, helicopters in our scenario, and ground stations.

 

ATC reliance on ADS-B may allow for hostile individuals to disrupt helicopter operations through various cyber-attacks.  There is no current means to train ATCs to detect and react to cyber attacks against ADS-B communication. There is also a need for the means to  better understand the potential mission impacts of cyber threats and to allow for the development of improved operational and risk management processes for helicopter operations in the Campos Basin Region.