Secure and Compliant Workloads for Aerospace & Aviation

The aviation and aerospace industries are at the forefront of technological advancements, necessarily integrating innovative solutions to achieve new heights. They face increasing cybersecurity challenges due to many reasons – their reliance on multiple technologies (that create a large attack surface due to an increase in connected systems and devices), legacy systems, trust relationships with third-party vendors, regulatory compliance with multiple frameworks, and the rise of Advanced Persistent Threats (APTs). Also, as they continue to grow and innovate, there is great need for solutions that can provide insights, predictions, prevention, and proactive management.

Security and Compliance Challenges in the Aerospace and Aviation Industry

The industry faces significant IT security challenges arising from their interconnected systems, mission-critical infrastructure, and sensitive data, with a constant threat of cyberattacks targeting flight controls, navigation, and communication networks – all of which could disrupt flights, compromise safety, or grant unauthorized control of aircraft.

Supply chain vulnerabilities add to the concerns, as the complex global network backing these sectors can introduce weaknesses if components are compromised or if malicious code is inserted during manufacturing or distribution. The intricate connectivity, both in-flight and on the ground, broadens the potential attack surface, and satellite systems for communication and navigation introduce additional security concerns.

The aerospace and aviation industry must adhere to rigorous compliance standards to ensure safety, security, and efficiency in operations for us all. These standards encompass various aspects of the industry, including:

• Regulatory Compliance
• Supply Chain Vulnerabilities
• Diverse Operational Environments
• Legacy Systems and Compatibility
• Increasingly Sophisticated Threats

How to Master Continuous Compliance: Gaining a Centralized View of Your IT Infrastructure

IT Security and Operations teams and Security Operations Centers (SOCs) can leverage one proactive platform to replace multiple reactive tools to gain security compliance, operational efficiency, stability and uptime – while saving valuable time. IT Managers and system administrators should look for a solution that in a single UI provides a transparent view of the IT infrastructure, revealing not only configuration drift and vulnerabilities (including CVEs, VMSAs and CISA KEVs), but also vendor best practices alignment and security compliance audits and reporting – and prioritizing those findings by criticality.

Fulfilling needs for increased efficiency and ensuring stable production, IT teams need to be able to reveal critical issues proactively and know exactly which issues to prioritize for security compliance, operational efficiency and uptime.

IT Operations Management & Continuous Compliance from a Single Platform

Centralized Dashboard for Efficient Infrastructure Management

Runecast provides a centralized dashboard for out-of-the-box transparency with an organized and unified overview of misconfigurations, vulnerabilities (including CVEs, VMSAs, and CISA KEVs), alignment with vendor best practices, regulatory compliance audits and granular historical reporting options.

Again, this is all in a single dashboard – to streamline the management process, reduce the complexity associated with handling (and learning) separate tools, and facilitate more efficient infrastructure management.

“We use Runecast mostly as a solution to warn us of potential problems with new versions or updates before they manifest as real issues. Runecast increases the stability and performance of our environment.”
—Michael Szczuka, Senior Engineer, The German Aerospace Center (DLR)

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Transparent View of Configuration Drift

With its Configuration Vault feature, Runecast simplifies configuration drift management by mapping out configurations and showing comparisons between different points in time. This aids in identifying and managing any deviations from the desired configurations, thus helping to ensure a secure and compliant operational environment.

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Simplified Compliance and Reporting

Runecast automates security compliance audits and reporting, streamlining the process of monitoring and proving compliance across various platforms that include AWS, Azure, GCP, Kubernetes, VMware, Windows and Linux OS (see all Runecast Integrations). This automation significantly reduces the manual work required for compliance management, making it easier and more efficient for organizations to adhere to both internal and external security standards. 

Besides compliance standards, you can leverage also advanced vulnerability management capabilities that include proactive, automated discovery and prioritization of CVEs, VMSAs and CISA KEVs in your IT infrastructure.

The platform allows simple creation of customizable compliance reports, providing clear verification of compliance posture to relevant stakeholders, regulation authorities, and external auditors. Additionally, Runecast provides best-practice fit-gap analysis reports and security hardening checks, along with custom resolution guides and remediation scripts tailored specifically for your environment. 

These features collectively aid in ensuring a robust security posture and compliance with a growing list of standards that include CIS Benchmarks and NIST, among many others (see all Runecast Security Compliance Audits), whether operating in private data centers or in the public cloud.

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“We chose Runecast mainly initially looking at the virtualization layer that we have and ensuring compliance with the best practices that are released by VMware, or even by the other compliance providers like CIS.”
—Al Lawati, ICT Technical Senior Manager  at Oman Airports

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Proactive Issue Identification and Remediation

Runecast excels in automating the discovery and prioritization of potential issues and remediation options across various technologies that include VMware, AWS, Azure, GCP, Kubernetes, Windows, and Linux.

With features like Hardware Compatibility List (HCL) scanning, issue remediation, OS-level analysis with preconfigured rules, and ESXi upgrade simulations, Runecast empowers organizations to identify and address potential issues before they can lead to dangerous and costly downtime, as well as potential reputational damage.

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“Runecast has revolutionized our operational approach, helping us identify and mitigate potential issues before they impact our services. It's an indispensable tool for us.”
—Martin Merki, Head of IT Operations, Skyguide

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Entirely On-Premises and Air-Gapped Deployment

Runecast can be deployed to run entirely on-premises, providing organizations with complete control over their data and ensuring adherence to stringent security and privacy requirements. Additionally, for enhanced security, Runecast can operate in air-gapped environments, with offline updates, further isolating the system from external networks and potential threats.

The platform helps to protect trade secrets by working securely on-premises and even offline (no data needs to leave the organization). Anh Tien Vu, Frost & Sullivan's Industry Principal in the Global Cybersecurity Practice, emphasizes the significance of this capability, noting that it provides a solution for businesses to comply with stringent regulations. For its strong overall performance and commitment to addressing the unique cybersecurity needs of highly regulated industries, Runecast was recognized with Frost & Sullivan’s 2023 European New Product Innovation Award in the CNAPP industry.

“Runecast’s on-prem CNAPP runs in an entirely air-gapped environment with offline updates, which is a highly attractive proposition and an answer for companies operating in highly regulated industries, such as government, defense, banking, financial services and insurance, healthcare, and service providers. This is in contrast to its competitors who mainly offer CNAPP solutions with a SaaS-based deployment (particularly those without physical computing facilities in Europe) which makes it difficult for customers to comply with regulations like GDPR.”
—Anh Tien Vu, Industry Principal,
Global Cybersecurity Practice at Frost & Sullivan

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Conclusion

Runecast plays a pivotal role in the aerospace and aviation industry by empowering IT Operations, Security, and Compliance teams to effectively address complex challenges in mission-critical environments before those challenges can require reactive troubleshooting and damage control. With streamlined continuous compliance, proactive issue identification, and a transparent view of IT infrastructure – all without data leaving your organization – it ensures robust security and helps teams to focus on more important initiatives.

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Resources for further reading:

https://www.runecast.com/case-studies/oman-airports-improves-cybersecurity-with-cnapp 

https://www.runecast.com/case-studies/skyguide 

https://www.runecast.com/case-studies/runecast-analyzer-minimizes-operational-risks 

https://www.runecast.com/resource-center/frost-sullivans-2023-cnapp-innovation-award