Cybersecurity, at the end of the day, is about protecting the CIA triad of confidentiality, integrity, and availability: data should be kept confidential (unauthorized persons should not have access), with integrity (it should be complete and correct) and availability (persons authorized to view and use the data should be able to do so. Today's failure of the FAA's NOTAM (Notice to Air Missions) safety system is a clear example of a failure of availability, and the chaos that can result following that type of failure. Without the data provided by the system, thousands of flights were grounded. The cause now appears to be a corrupted file,(1, 2) meaning that integrity, another pillar of the triad, led to the loss of accessibility.
Though data breaches, hacking, and pen testing tend to be the first things thought of when cybersecurity is discussed, the more pedestrian functions of keeping the data safe from accidents is just as important.
1. Blackman, Jay, et. al. "Corrupted file to blame for FAA aviation stoppage that delayed thousands of flights" NBC News, Updated Jan. 11, 2023, 6:47 PM EST. Accessed at https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/us-flights-grounded-faa-outage-rcna65243 Jan 11, 2023 6:56 PM EST
2. Federal Aviation Administration, "FAA NOTAMS Statement: Wednesday, January 11, 2023", Accessed at https://www.faa.gov/newsroom/faa-notams-statement Jan 11, 2023, 7:00 PM EST
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