Serious safety problems have been found in the control and guidance of aircraft carried out by the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) of the United States, as revealed in a relevant report by the Government Accountability Office, GAO. The GAO is under the US Congress and controls the taxpayer money spent by the Federal Government, both on control systems and on the security of the country. One of these is the NAS, the system that controls the airspace of the United States.
While auditing the FAA's information security program , GAO staff found significant security vulnerabilities in the system that could pose a threat and cause problems in the management of the NAS (National Airspace System).
In their 40-page report, GAO investigators revealed weaknesses they found during their assessment of the system, including a failure to grant proper authorization for access to the NAS and a problem with the airspace control system.
Another serious problem that was found is that the FAA was not isolating sensitive networks through firewall that it used to prevent both incoming and outgoing connections.
At the end of the report, the GAO made 17 recommendations aimed at fully implementing the security program that should be in place and mitigating the risks that exist in the NAS system. However, an additional classified report that was prepared recommends 168 specific actions to address all the problems discovered in the system, so that it is fully secure.
The Federal Aviation Administration immediately agreed to implement everything the report said and fully secure the NAS.
