Guide for Mapping Types of Information and Information Systems to Security Categories, Volume 2: Appendices
APPENDIX D: IMPACT DETERMINATION FOR MISSION-BASED > D.11 Transportation > D.11.3

D.11.3 Air Transportation Information Type Air Transportation involves the activities related to the safe passage of passengers or goods through the air. It also includes command and control activities related to the safe movement of aircraft through all phases of flight for commercial and military operations. Note: The protection of air transportation from deliberate attack is included in the Transportation Security information type under the Homeland Security mission area. The general recommended security categorization for the air transportation information type is as follows: Security Category = {(confidentiality, Low), (integrity, Low), (availability, Low)} The confidentiality impact level is the effect of unauthorized disclosure of air transportation information on the ability of responsible agencies to ensure the safe passage of passengers and goods through the air. The protection of air transportation from deliberate attack is included in the Transportation Security information type under the Homeland Security mission area. Some regulatory and tariff enforcement functions associated with the safe passage of passengers and goods over land involve sensitive information. These are treated under Law Enforcement. In most cases, unauthorized disclosure of air transportation information will have only a limited adverse effect on agency operations, assets, or individuals. Special Factors Affecting Confidentiality Impact Determination: Unauthorized disclosure of information (e.g., investigations, maintenance) that has not been adequately researched, coordinated, or edited can result in serious economic harm to individuals and to corporations. Loss in public confidence is a further potential consequence. Additionally, some information associated with air transportation functions is proprietary to corporations or subject to privacy laws. In such cases, the confidentiality impact resulting from unauthorized disclosure can be moderate. The sensitivity of air transportation information (e.g., aircraft positioning data)can be time or event-driven. For example, passenger lists are not releasable to the general public before a flight takes off, but are placed in the public domain in the event of a crash. In such cases, the confidentiality impact resulting from unauthorized disclosure can be moderate. Also, much military air transport information is national security information and is outside the scope of this guideline. Recommended Confidentiality Impact Level: The provisional confidentiality impact level recommended for air transportation information is low. not on the time required to detect the modification or destruction of information. Many air transportation functions do not process time-critical information. Special Factors Affecting Integrity Impact Determination: Some air transportation functions are time- critical (e.g., air traffic control instructions, position reports, situational awareness, separation, weather reports for the terminal area, microburst tracking, maintenance trouble reports). Communications management (e.g., frequency management) information also needs to be included in air transportation integrity impact considerations. There may be circumstances under which erroneous frequency assignment information can result in a loss of communications with aircraft that are affected by hazardous conditions (e.g., loss of communications with an aircraft in a crowded air space.) Unauthorized modification or destruction of time-critical information necessary to these functions can result in large-scale property loss and in loss of human lives. The Wide Area Augmentation System (WAAS) supplements the availability and integrity of position information available from the DoD's Global Positioning Systems (GPS). Because of the potential system-wide impacts from a loss of integrity of this system, a high integrity impact level is recommended. The following example illustrates the use of controls to address a high integrity impact level: Systems designed for command and control for air traffic control (e.g., the NAS systems) have been designed for robust operations. In the NAS, integrity and availability issues are closely linked. The loss of integrity in a system is monitored continuously, and the loss of integrity is treated as a loss of availability, and in general, loss of availability for the majority of systems does not cause derogation in safety. That is, if the operational parameters for an Instrument Landing System are detected to be out of established tolerances, the system is immediately removed from service - it is powered down and users are notified that the particular service is not available. In most cases, a loss of availability is preferred to continued availability with degraded integrity. The impacts of the loss of availability due to the loss of integrity include system-wide air traffic delays, diversion of traffic to alternate airports - and the economic losses related to those delays, diversions, etc. Severe impacts are not the norm because the loss of availability is assumed to be inevitable, and the systems have been designed to accommodate failures. In light of the above, the Recommended Integrity Impact Level is moderate. Recommended Integrity Impact Level: The provisional integrity impact level recommended for most air transportation information is low. mission, not on the time required to re-establish access to air transportation information. Special Factors Affecting Availability Impact Determination: Some air transportation functions are time-critical (e.g., air traffic control instructions, position reports, situational awareness, separation, weather reports for the terminal area, microburst tracking, maintenance trouble reports). Loss of availability of time-critical information necessary to these functions can result in large-scale property loss and in loss of human lives. Timing plays a large part in the availability impact of air transportation information. For example, the time criticality of weather information may be measured in minutes or hours in the case of pre-flight and mid-flight operations. However, on final landing approach, up to the second availability may be required (e.g., detection of microbursts in the terminal area). Air operations are not tolerant of information loss. The Wide Area Augmentation System (WAAS) supplements the availability of information available from the Department of Defense's Global Positioning Systems (GPS). Because of the potential system-wide impacts from a loss of availability of this system, it would be appropriately categorized as having a high availability impact. The following example illustrates the use of controls to address a high integrity impact level: The systems designed for command and control for air traffic control (e.g., the NAS systems) have been designed for robust operations. However, in general, loss of availability for the majority of systems does not cause derogation in safety. The impacts of a loss of availability (or the loss of availability due to the loss of integrity) include local or system-wide air traffic delays, diversion of traffic to alternate airports, etc., and the economic losses related to those delays, diversions, etc. Severe impacts are not the norm because the loss of availability is inevitable, and the systems have been designed to accommodate failures. In light of the above, the Recommended Availability Impact Level is moderate. Recommended Availability Impact Level: The provisional availability impact level recommended for most air transportation information is low.