The Impact of COVID-19 on the Cybersecurity in Civil Aviation: Review and Analysis
Ahmed Abdel Wahab, Kamel Hussien Rahouma · 2022 International Telecommunications Conference (ITC-Egypt) · 2022
The significance of cybersecurity and cyber resilience in the aviation sector cannot be ignored, and this fact has been highlighted time and again due to frequent cyberattacks prior and during the COVID-19 pandemic. This paper presents an analysis of the relevant studies that addressed the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on cybersecurity generally, and in the aviation sector in particular, including identifying the most common increased cyber-attacks associated with the outbreak of COVID-19. Our analysis shows that commonly increased cyber-attacks associated with the outbreak of COVID-19 in aviation are phishing and ransomware. Furthermore, the likelihood of phishing and ransomware attacks is very likely during the pandemic than before it while the impact on flight operations is low, and the subsequent risk level is tolerable during the pandemic. Additionally, we propose a set of possible mitigation measures for those cyber-attacks.