On the Vulnerability of Random Access Channels in Aeronautical Communications

In the last years, digitization of wireless communication has reached the field of aviation. New manned aircraft require advanced communication services to operate efficiently, while unmanned aircraft depend on communication to operate at all. The absence of a crew on board of unmanned aircraft makes reliable data communication between the remote pilot and the air vehicle a requirement for safe operation. One critical part of digital aeronautical communication systems is the initial login of new users. In many digital systems, this is realized by a random access channel, that aircraft use to establish communication with the network. Since failing to log in would make communication with the network impossible, the random access channel is an attractive target for an attacker. In this paper, we analyze the effect of targeted jamming attacks on the random access channel on the login performance of a terrestrial aeronautical communication system. Using computer simulations we show that pulsed jammers with very low duty cycle can achieve similar jamming performances as continuous wave jammers while being far more energy efficent and thus more feasible. We quantize our findings with the network login time and success rate under jamming and conclude that aeronautical communication can be effectively blocked by attacking the random access channel in practical ways. We conclude with the discussion of possible countermeasures.