How the Chicago Airports Were Hacked Essay

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Aircraft Flight Disturbance

Internal Memo:

Lessons Learned From September 26th O'Hare International Airport Incident

Senior Management

Recommendations to Avert Widespread Flight Disturbances

On September 26th, 2014, both O'Hare and Midway airports experienced a day-long disruption of operations that led to over 2,000 flights being cancelled and the entire nation affected by the disruption of operations. An employee with psychological problems intent on killing himself started a fire in the basement telecommunications room of the Aurora, Illinois control center, then attempted to slit his throat. After posting his suicide note on Facebook, relatives called 911 and both his life and the control center were saved. The fire damaged the most critical areas of the IT infrastructure for air traffic control for both the O'Hare and Midway airports, forcing air traffic control locations in adjacent states to take on one of the busiest areas of the country for air travel. The lack of IT controls in place made this situation particularly treacherous and very dangerous for the thousands of inbound and outbou7nd flights, and left tens of thousands stranded overnight not only in the Chicago area, but in adjacent airports as well. With a more effective IT systems analysis plan the entire situation could have been averted.

Information Systems Analysis and Recommendations

The incidents on September 26th, 2014 underscore one of the most fundamental precepts that enterprise-wide IT security strategies need to focus first, which is screening, precise role definition and management of key staff who manage large-scale IT data centers and systems (Crockett, 1988).

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For a single employee to gain access to the most critical systems for the air traffic centers serving O'Hare and Midway airports, it's clear there was no role-based access definitions, in addition to any constraints on key IT asset access as well. These two elements of role-based access definitions and constraints on key IT asset access are foundational to effective enterprise security management initiatives (Lynch, 2006). Best practices for ensuring mission critical information systems aren't impacted by acts like these need to increasingly include advanced safeguards including biometrics to both audit and restrict access to such critical IT assets (Deane, Barrelle, Henderson, Mahar, 1995). To ensure that these systems that are essential for routing traffic through O'Hare and Midway aren't impacted by an internal attack it is imperative that the Chicago Airport Authority restrict access to only those areas of the buildings in Aurora and other locations that need maintenance (Lynch, 2006). Taking away the potential for an arsonist event or any other type of sabotage needs to also begin with a focused series of strategies to limit just how much access any one person has to the systems operating the airport.….....

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