The aviation industry faces significant challenges due to rising global air travel demand. Frequency saturation in Air Traffic Management (ATM) leads to communication problems, necessitating the enhancement of traditional systems. The Single European Sky ATM Research (SESAR) initiative, backed by the European Commission, aims to digitize ATM, with the L-band Digital Aeronautical Communications System (LDACS) as a key component. LDACS aims to improve communication, enhance surveillance, and optimize airspace usage for safer, more efficient ATM. Although LDACS is protected against most cyberattacks, a critical security objective, anonymity, is currently overlooked. To strengthen LDACS’s security, robust authentication mechanisms, Post-Quantum security, and measures to ensure aircraft anonymity are crucial. Therefore, we propose a comprehensive security framework to enhance LDACS’s cybersecurity, focusing on mutual authentication and key agreement. The protocol uses Physical Unclonable Function (PUF) for robust mutual authentication and Bit-flipping Key Encapsulation (BIKE) for secure session key establishment utilizing Post-Quantum Cryptography (PQC). This framework ensures anonymity and secure communication between aircraft and ground stations while minimizing message exchange, latency, and data overhead. An informal security analysis confirms our proposed framework’s potential to augment the efficiency and security of ATM operations.


    Access

    Check access

    Check availability in my library

    Order at Subito €


    Export, share and cite



    Title :

    Enhancing Cybersecurity for LDACS: a Secure and Lightweight Mutual Authentication and Key Agreement Protocol


    Contributors:


    Publication date :

    2023-10-01


    Size :

    1278217 byte





    Type of media :

    Conference paper


    Type of material :

    Electronic Resource


    Language :

    English



    Evaluation of the LDACS Cybersecurity Implementation

    Maurer, Nils / Graupl, Thomas / Schmitt, Corinna | IEEE | 2019


    Performance-Optimizing Secure GBAS Over LDACS

    Graupl, Thomas / Maurer, Nils | IEEE | 2021


    Formal Verification of the LDACS MAKE Protocol

    Mäurer, Nils / Grundner-Culemann, Sophia | German Aerospace Center (DLR) | 2022

    Free access


    L-band Digital Aeronautical Communications System (LDACS) draft-ietf-raw-ldacs-10

    Mäurer, Nils / Gräupl, Thomas / Schmitt, Corinna | German Aerospace Center (DLR) | 2022

    Free access