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Safety and security
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Jim McKenzie
Transport Solutions Manager, Real Time Engineering Ltd
Real Time has been providing IT consultancy and services for many years to customers for whom safety and security are key business issues. Many sectors, which include airports, airlines, ATC, oil and gas, utilities and finance, have benefited from our unique approach and business-led solutions.
Real Time’s solutions related to Safety and Security include:
Security and Biometrics
A number of biometric technologies are emerging as industry standards. Techniques currently being used include facial recognition, fingerprint recognition, hand geometry, iris recognition and signature dynamics. These are being combined with other tools such as smart cards to provide enhanced security, and to support one-stop check in processing at airports.
Real Time is working with airport authorities and systems providers in various trials of WAP, wireless and biometric technologies, to improve the processing and security of passenger movements through the Airport. Real Time’s expertise in systems integration, leading-edge technologies, telecoms, and our end-to-end knowledge of business processes in the airport, mean that we are ideally positioned to assist airports in understanding how best to use technologies to bring business benefits, and improved safety and security.
Passenger Modelling
Real Time’s Passenger Forecasting tool is a flexible, innovative tool which uses historical data, current airport operational data including flight schedules, and a physical model of the airport campus, to provide accurate forecasts of passenger flow at various ‘pinch points’ in the passenger journey - for both arriving and departing passengers. This data is invaluable for planning security requirements, and can be used to plan the optimal resources of personnel and equipment, including number of check-in desks required, x-ray screening units, scanners, security archways, boarding staff, etc.
An intrinsic component of the algorithms is the ability to derive the number of passengers on individual flights. This aspect of the model can be used to provide additional trending and profiling information. Tied in with live operational passenger data, this can be used to highlight statistics which can influence staffing changes to better cope with changes to demand on the day. This can also help airlines to address the problem of overbooking.
The range of statistics available are invaluable to airport operators who recognise that optimised passenger flow not only supports the safety and security functions at airports, but enhances the potential to capitalise on retail and leisure income in the terminals.
Safety and Security Process Management
Real Time has a number of tools that provide operational support in secure, operational environments.
Real Time’s Briefing System is an internet-based tool that allows shift managers to enter essential information relating to safety, security and operational issues, with which personnel require to be briefed so that they can effectively carry out their duties before commencing their shift. The tool is easily configured to support varying degrees of auditability and assurance, e.g., ATC controllers are legally obliged to read and understand mandatory briefings prior to commencing duties, it is desirable that security personnel understand security alert statuses prior to commencing their duties, and managers need to understand the most recent DTLR directives prior to deploying staff. The Briefing System additionally guarantees the data integrity of submitted messages, preventing risk from accidental or malicious data corruption.
Real Time’s Incident Management systems ensure that all safety or security related issues are reported, and that each incident is managed according to the defined process. This includes investigation, short-term remedial actions, longer-term remedial actions, and satisfactory closure. An audit trail exists for each incident, ensuring that compliance to best practice can be demonstrated. In addition, management reports are provided so that managers can quickly identify risk areas, and brief themselves regarding the current status of any incidents.
Staff Rostering Solutions
Our Roster Management tools can assist in solving business problems. For example, smooth passenger movement throughout the airport as a result of deploying security staff in the right place at the right time provides a safer and more secure environment, as well as allowing airport operators to plan for optimum revenue from retail and leisure facilities.
The Roster Management tools include the following:
- Passenger Forecasting
- Demand Conversion
- Roster Generation
- On-the-day deployment
- Staff Administration
- Business Information
IT Systems Security
A major threat to airport security is malicious or accidental interference to the IT infrastructure. The impact to the daily operation of a major airport could be huge, causing airports to grind to a halt, and aircraft to be grounded. Such problems can have a huge business impact, as well as a rippling effect upon the wider economy. Research has suggested that not all organisations are fully aware of the potential impact of such problems, or the extent to which they are exposed by their existing IT infrastructures and systems.
Recent examples of problems found in security audits include:
- Key systems where user IDs and passwords are not required
- Systems where group user IDs and passwords are used, making it impossible to detect audit trails of changes to the systems
- No authentication required for remote access to key systems
- Inconsistent use of virus tools
- Firewalls providing insufficient restrictions for execution of programs
Our consultants have a wealth of experience in auditing systems against quality, safety, IT and security standards. For many of our customers, we have implemented IT security policies. In the aviation industry, we are well placed to offer these services because we have worked in airports, airline and ATC, where we have an unsurpassed appreciation of both legacy and leading-edge systems and architectures. In audits, we use a defined process, which we created for the Health and Safety Executive, initially developed to assess issues arising from the millennium bug. This process has been demonstrated to be easily adaptable to audits in any environment where a variety of IT systems and products of varying pedigree exist.
E-business Security
Companies and governments around the world have been embarrassed by the common-or-garden hacker. Indeed, organisations have failed to fully embrace e-business because they have been worried by the cost and effort of building adequate security into a system. Real Time provides services to industries where safety, security and quality are paramount. Because we understand these industries, and the associated issues, we can help our customers by addressing confidentiality, availability and integrity of the data held in their e-business systems. Two further keys provide the basis for our approach – people and uptime.
Many hacks and security incidents are caused by disgruntled employees – past or present – who may be responsible either directly or as an agent for the professional hacker. Also, people tend to share passwords, write them down or use easily guessed codes. In fact, people are a greater source of insecurity than all others put together.
If your system isn’t running, you are not earning money and this must be weighed against the cost of repairing or reconstructing the system and its data. This is why availability is such an important feature of the modern approach to security.
Techniques Real Time employs include:
- Recommendations on appropriate biometric mechanisms (fingerprint recognisers, etc.), smart cards and security tokens
- Audits of the business processes to ensure they support security
- Audits of software versions, password use, virus software, etc
- The use of ethical hacking specialists to identify problem areas
- Recommendations on the use and configuration of firewalls
- Recommendations on intrusion detection systems
- Advice on digital encryption software.
Real Time’s approach is always one of pragmatism, and we recommend appropriate measures to address problems. We do this by combining our knowledge with that of specialists in the field, to ensure an optimum business implementation is achieved, i.e., one that delivers appropriate security, whilst delivering sustainable business benefits.
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