Simulating ADS-B vulnerabilitiesby imitating aircrafts : Using an air traffic management simulator

Abstract: Air traffic communication is one of the most vital systems for air traffic management controllers. It is used every day to allow millions of people to travel safely and efficiently across the globe. But many of the systems considered industry-standard are used without any sort of encryption and authentication meaning that they are vulnerable to different wireless attacks. In this thesis vulnerabilities within an air traffic management system called ADS-B will be investigated. The structure and theory behind this system will be described as well as the reasons why ADS-B is unencrypted. Two attacks will then be implemented and performed in an open-source air traffic management simulator called openScope. ADS-B data from these attacks will be gathered and combined with actual ADS-B data from genuine aircrafts. The collected data will be cleaned and used for machine learning purposes where three different algorithms will be applied to detect attacks. Based on our findings, where two out of the three machine learning algorithms used were able to detect 99.99% of the attacks, we propose that machine learning algorithms should be used to improve ADS-B security. We also think that educating air traffic controllers on how to detect and handle attacks is an important part of the future of air traffic management.