Control over IT and Cyberspace in Aviation - Essay Example

? Control over IT and Cyberspace in Aviation in the United s May 24, Outline: I. Technology in Aviation………………………………………………………………… 3 Current technology Overview………………………………………………. 3 A. Web 2.0………………………………………………………….……… 3 B. Mobile Devices………………………………………………………….. 4 C. Biometrics……………………………………………………………….. 5 D. RFID…………………………………………………………………….. 5 2. Future Study on Technology………………………………………………… 6 II. Communication and Networking………………………………………………………… 6 1. United States Aviation (boarder Management)……………………………… 6 A. Helping hand to police department……………………………………… 7 B. Using worldwide information sharing…………………………………… 7 2. People in the ground…………………………………………………………. 8 A. Traveling Agencies………………………………………………………. 8 III. Cybercrime in Aviation………………………………………………………………….. 9 IV. Possible elements of threats…………………………………………………………….. 10 V. Conclusion…………………………………………………………………………….... 10 VI. Bibliography……………………………………………………………………………. 12 Technology in Aviation Current Technology Overview As a crucial element in the competitive marketplace innovation in the technology is vital for the air transport industry. Technological achievements greatly influenced aviation field when more computer- and web-based applications, techniques and tools are applied in the daily work of aviation sectors. In the recent years the Internet and web-based applications became some of the main technological achievements and advantages in the world, which main positive and efficient feature is to help millions of people to ease the process of finding and accessing necessary information quickly and precisely. It is expected that in the future more than three billion people would be using the global air transport system. The air travel passengers of the future would expect information and personalization whenever and wherever they travel. According to 2009 SITA Report, there are five new technologies that will simplify and smooth the air travel journey for passengers within the next five years. Such technologies include Web 2.0, mobile devices, Near Field Communications, biometrics and RFID. It is expected that these five new technologies will meet the changing and increasing needs and expectations of worldwide travelers in addition to improving their air travel experience starting from the flight choice decision and ending with the landing at the final destination. Web 2.0 Until recently there were two types of aviation-related websites, including aviation news and websites about aircraft markets providing the platform to trade for sellers and buyers. However, the modern Internet users and passengers require improved communication through interaction and participation. That is why, integration of Web 2.0 into aviation industry helped to open such websites as Flightblogger, AirplaneGeeks, UncontrolledAirspace, PlaneBuzz, RunwayGirl, Flightaware, and many others. These websites created “user-powered” passengers of the Web 2.0, who can communicate, interact and share information and flight experience. Popular social websites like Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and others have special aviation-related categories and groups. Websites like aviationclub.aero and avpronet.com became popular social networks dedicated to aviation, including forums, photo albums, walls for posting notes, etc. Linked-In helps to connect aviation professionals around the world and allows them to interact and connect each other for the business opportunities, flights availability, prices and mutual promotion. Due to the online services of weather.aero pilots, flight crews, handling agents and brokers are able to check airport weather, weather map graphics and weather forecasts. Mobile Devices The constant technological improvements of the mobile devices help many industries to progress and meet the expectations of the users. In aviation mobile devices impact the passengers’ journey in terms of access to various online services. Previously, such services were accessed online through computers and laptops, though the modern air travelers who can be often on the move require the technological innovative tools to be constantly connected. Now passengers can use their mobiles to purchase tickets online, change the date and time of the ticket, make early check-in and even create the boarding pass in order to safe time in the airport. SITA 2009 wrote that the number of transport-based mobile ticketing would grow from 37.4 million worldwide in 2007 till 1.8 billion in 2011. Airlines like IndiGo and AirAsia already allowed their passengers to check-in via mobile devices. The airline industry can save up to $500 million by replacing printed boarding passes by the mobile boarding passes. OnAir, for instance, offers the passengers the ability to have voice and data conversations onboard as if they are on the ground, which provides huge opportunities to socialize and keep being connected during the flight. Biometrics The constant technological improvements and innovations in the biometrics help to improve aviation security. Each airport, for instance, is responsible for securing its own area against access by the unauthorized vehicles and people. To protect airports and aviation-related sectors biometrics are used as the effective way to improve employee identity verification and access authorization, identity verification of flight crew and passengers. The biometric systems include facial recognition, iris recognition, hand geometry, speaker recognition and retina recognition, each of which has the enrollment and verification/identification stages. The enrollment stage requires person’s identification document in order to prove his/her identity to be linked to the biometrics (iris, fingertips, hand). That is why, the quality of the identifier during the enrollment process is a vital element for the integrity of the biometric system. The second stage can be either verification or identification. The goal of the verification systems is to verify the person’s identity after he/she provides identification document and biometrics. The generated trial template is compared with the person’s reference template stored in the system to find a “one-to-one” match. On the contrary, the identification systems are looking for “one-to-many” match by identifying who the person is. However, there is no need for identification document in this case. Finally, it is important to remember that biometrics does not provide 100% accuracy in individual identification because every time the template is unique; that is why, several types of biometrics should ideally be used to have enough data for comparison in order to find the match. RFID As an automatic identification method radio-frequency identification (RFID) is storing and retrieving data remotely by using such devices as RFID transponders or tags. Starting from 2003 the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) developed the technical specifications for RFID e-passports, which in the form of 64K chips store data about the name of passport holder and information about date and place of birth. In addition, such chips include biometrics (digital fingerprints, iris scans, individual photos, etc). In comparison to traditional security system, superior services of RFID help to speed the passage through airport security, faster border processing, less lost/late luggage, fewer missed flights, less mishandled baggage, more secure air transport system and reduced passenger-related delays. Future Study on Technology Every several months there are new achievements and improvements in the technology applied in different industries and sectors. It is especially required in aviation where safety and security are the main issues that can be reached due to technological applications and equipments that should be improved on a regular basis. New quality system standards and various innovated strategies will be useful and effective in routine usage in airline industry applications for both software and hardware, development of company’s infrastructure to assure delivery of quality products and services, and determination of customers critical to quality requirements to assure alignment to the best practices in the industry. Communication and Networking United States Aviation (Boarder Management) Today border management agencies, public safety organizations and law enforcement are facing great challenges and threats from globalization, crimes and international terrorism (Accenture, 2008). That is why, one of the most important and challenging tasks of United States aviation management is to ensure protection of national interests and citizens, who require visible public safety resources aimed at transparency and efficient results of the movement of travelers and goods. Border management process models are aimed to keep the country, its trade, citizens and visitors safe and secure while identifying and intercepting high-risk individuals and cargo with the help of Global Case Management System (Accenture, 2008). In cooperation with the US Department of Homeland Security (DHS), Accurate-led Smart Border Alliance is designing and implementing the United States Visitor and Immigrant Status Indicator Technology (US-VISIT) program that establishes the virtual border in order to distinguish security risks before an individual reaches the United States. Helping hand to police department The main challenge of the police today is to reduce volume of crimes and antisocial behavior, which is complicated by the limited budgets and increased pressure on the police personnel. In order to meet the current challenges, the implementation of various technological applications in the police becomes mandatory. Integrated Operations Management System (SIGO), multi-phase program PULSE and Policing Performance Assessment Framework (PPAF) are only few among those developed for police departments to improve work of the police departments, to provide improved access to necessary information and to ensure citizen security (Accenture, 2008). In addition, the development of Knowledge Discovery Capability as the commercial-off-the-shelf (COTS)-based platform will help intelligence-led law enforcement to identify and remove emerging threats confidently and quickly. Using worldwide information sharing Worldwide sharing of information becomes extremely important today to maximize next-generation technology in order to protect citizens on the ground and in the air by applying strong prevention and deterrence practices through intranets, call centers, shared databases, Web-based portals and other technological tools. The technology systems and Web-based applications used, for instance, in the call centers help to handle thousands of calls daily in hundreds of languages while directing them to a single point of contact and storing all this information in a single multi-purpose database. In such a way, by using such technological innovations governments worldwide can focus on effective strategic emergency preparedness (Accenture, 2008). People in the ground Traveling Agencies Online travel agencies as Expedia, Sabre Holdings, Cendant and Priceline control 97% of the U.S. market and only 50% of European market (O’Connell, 2010). Although agencies are important for many airlines’ distribution strategies, base commissions on domestic and international fares have been largely reduced. Nevertheless, agencies will remain important distribution channels for many airlines, especially with scheduled flights. Though, in order to survive at the market where online travel booking by individuals becomes more popular and common every day, these agencies have to offer different types of products such as corporate travel management services or leisure travel packages, build “preferred supplier” relationships with airlines, develop joint promotional programs, making special deals available only through those partners, and so on (Holloway, 2008). In addition, airlines use disintermediation as the strategy to reduce distribution costs, mainly eliminating agency commissions and GDS booking fees and reducing call center workload by encouraging customers use airlines’ websites to book the tickets online and plan their trips. For example, by introducing the service of booking both ticket and hotel through the British Airways booking system, the airline attracted more customers since it offered them good discounts for the package, which in turn allowed the airline reducing distribution costs (O’Connell, 2010). Moreover, to reduce GDS costs, airlines have to negotiate with credit card companies about lower charges, promote alternative payment mechanisms such as PayPal and surcharging customers who pay by credit card (Holloway, 2008). With the increased use of Internet for tickets booking, travel agencies faced the problem of decreased use of their services, especially in Asia, Europe and North America. The IT investments allowed offering additional services for the customers, including web check-in, online trip change, passenger notification by mobile phone, check-in via passenger mobile phone, self-boarding kiosks, off airport baggage check-in services, lost baggage self-service, and others. Many passengers now check-in through Internet (30%), kiosks (26%) and mobile phone (7%). Mobile phones particularly are expected to assist in the following services: • boarding passes (bar coded): 72% • supporting e-payment: 55% • fast check thru security: 48% • retail marketing: 40% • baggage receipt: 32% • gate directions at airport: 30% • automated lounge access: 30% Cybercrime in Aviation Today cyber crimes are considered as the second largest threat for airlines coming after natural disasters, which proves the seriousness of the situation when cyber criminals exploit airline information and critical infrastructure (Barwick, 2011). Since every service has its positive and negative aspects, cyber crimes are also dangerous for so popular airline service as online ticket booking that was first introduced in 2004 after permission by International Air Transport Association (IATA). While online ticketing helped to ease many processes, it also brought such important issues as fraud credit card numbers. Jet Airways and Spicejet, for instance, already implemented Cybersource’s Decision Manager to ensure payment security (Barwick, 2011). The implementation of payment security systems becomes vitally important for aviation industry to minimize losses. Possible elements of threats Smuggling of people and goods has always been an important problem, but with the recent technological innovations and increased number of crimes the issue should be addressed immediately to ensure public safety and protection of human rights. The smuggling can be related to illegal trade, immigration, drugs, tax evasion, etc. The problem of illegal drug trafficking and smuggling of weapons is mainly related to aviation security because these goods are usually brought by air transportation. The scanning equipment at the airports allow identifying the potentially dangerous items, which can be further investigated by airport personnel in addition to the person’s identification documents and criminal records to prevent criminals or people with potential threats entering the country. As it was mentioned above, proper identification of airport employees, flight crew members, and people from other aviation sectors is extremely important due to the existence of false IDs to access public and private aviation sectors. Conclusion Under the current environment of the aviation security, the issues of international terrorism, increased cyber crimes, false identification and many others present a serious threat for further development of the industry. Procedures currently done at the airports like screening air passengers against the terrorist and criminal watch lists are gradually improving due to the latest technological innovations. Identity management is more than just technology because it integrates emerging technologies with the aligned business processes. Bibliography: Barwick, Hamish. Cyber Crime – Second Largest Risk to Airlines. Cio-Asia.com, April 1, 2011. http://www.cio-asia.com/tech/security/cyber-crime-second-biggest-risk-to-airlines/ Holloway, S. (2008). Straight and level: practical airline economics. 3rd edition. TJ International Ltd. O’Connell, J. (2010). Developments in IT and Distribution. Helwan University, Cairo, Egypt. Protecting Public Safety. Accenture Border Management and Public Safety. Violante, Francesco. Ten Technology Advances that will Change Air Travel. SITA, 2009. Read More