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Cybersecurity in Aviation: A Review of Threats, Solutions, and Future Directions
Abstract
The increasing pace of digitalization of aviation systems also means new threats since it shifts the safety, reliability, and operational integrity into a risk zone due to cybersecurity. This study offers a structured literature review of current threats, mitigations, and research gaps occupying the aviation cybersecurity field. A total of 10 peer-reviewed studies in aircraft systems, air traffic management (ATM), airport infrastructure, and unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) were reviewed and analyzed based on peer-reviewed studies retrieved from Semantic Scholar and OpenAlex AI. Structured screening and data extraction/analysis followed the defined inclusion criteria and thematic review. The review of the core papers is supplemented with 8 foundational works related to smart airport security, GPS spoofing, the use of blockchain to communicate, and the sharing of cyber threat information. The findings showed that spoofing, jamming, denial-of-service, and malware attacks are still the most common threats. At the same time, machine learning (ML) based detection/mitigation, encryption, and secure network architectures have been suggested as solutions, but their validation remains intangible. These obstacles demonstrate a necessity for standardization frameworks and additional unity in the area of aviation cybersecurity, especially in technology, operations, and policy, to achieve a presence of resilience.
Keywords:
Aviation Cybersecurity Digital Resilience Intrusion Detection Risk Assessment Frameworks Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs)
Article information
Journal
Scientific Journal of Engineering, and Technology
Volume (Issue)
2(2), (2025)
Pages
149-157
Published
Copyright
Copyright (c) 2025 Jonah Gonzalo (Author)
Open access

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
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References
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