ADS-B Signal Signature Extraction for Intrusion Detection in the Air Traffic Surveillance System

Automatic Dependent Surveillance-Broadcast (ADS-B) is a surveillance system used in Air Traffic Control. In this system aircraft transmit their own information (identity, position, velocity etc.) to any equipped listener for surveillance scope. ADS-B is based on a very simple protocol and doesn't provide any kind of authentication and encryption, making it vulnerable to many types of cyber-attacks. In the paper, it is proposed the use of airplane/transmitter RF level features to perform a test to distinguish legitimate messages from fake ones. The received signal features extraction process is described and an intrusion detection algorithm is proposed and evaluated by the use of real data. The results show that by a simple signal processing add-on on a classical (and low cost) ADS- B receivers, it is possible to detect if the ADS- B messages are sent using the expected hardware or not in the 85% of the case.