Page 8 - Cybersecurity Career Guide, 4th Edition

what is cybersecurity?
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Going Airborne
Hackers are increasingly targeting airlines, with a significant rise in at-
tacks between 2019 and 2020. During this period, attacks increased by 530 percent, with ransomware attacks occurring on a weekly basis. The majority of these attacks, carried out by pro-Russia groups, have primarily resulted
in computer outages through distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks. By disrupting internet connections, hackers cause terrible delays, with all the impact on business and personal lives that you can imagine. Fortunately, nothing worse has been reported. But a plane’s Wi-Fi or entertainment sys- tem could be hacked to enable tampering with satellite communications and interfering with navigation and control. A tech-savvy hijacker could change your route — or worse — without worrying about getting through airport se- curity to board the plane. While airlines have robust cybersecurity systems in place, and pilots can still take control away from autopilot, without cyberse- curity vigilance, passengers could experience more than just a bumpy flight.
Guarding Against
Subway Scares
The New York City Metropolitan Transpor- tation Authority discovered in 2021 that its computer systems had been breached, for the third time. The perpetrators, believed to be backed by the Chinese gov- ernment, didn’t demand ransom, nor did they access systems that controlled train cars (which would have put passengers
at risk). Nonetheless, the intrusion is a cautionary tale for public transit systems across the country. While 80 percent of transportation agencies say they’re pre- pared to manage cybersecurity threats, only 60 percent of them have a plan in place, according to a study last year by the Mineta Transportation Institute.
Watching Our Ride
In September of 2022, employees at Uber received this Slack message: “I announce I am a hacker and Uber has suffered a data breach.” The hacker gained access by pretending to be from Uber’s tech department and persuading one unfortunate employee to give up their password. (This technique, called social engineering, was used in similar attacks at Twitter and Microsoft.) It was not the first time that cyber criminals had stolen data from Uber. In 2016, hackers stole information from 57 million driver and rider accounts and demanded $100,000 to delete their copy of the data. Uber arranged the payment but kept the breach a secret for more than a year. When the theft came to light, the CEO was fired. Here’s hoping that transparency works better for Uber this time.