Automatic Dependent Surveillance–Broadcast (ADS-B) is often discussed primarily as a cybersecurity concern. That framing is understandable, but incomplete.
ADS-B broadcasts aircraft position, identity, altitude and velocity information to support surveillance and situational awareness. Because these transmissions were not originally designed with strong authentication and encryption mechanisms, discussions frequently focus on vulnerabilities such as spoofing, false-target injection, message manipulation and interference.
These threats matter. However, securing ADS-B cannot be reduced to installing another cybersecurity control.
A Wider Operational Challenge
ADS-B operates within a broader air traffic management environment. Its resilience depends not only on the integrity of its data, but also on the people, procedures, supporting infrastructure and fallback capabilities surrounding it.
A technically secure component can still contribute to operational failure if:
- abnormal data is not detected quickly;
- controllers are not adequately prepared for degraded surveillance;
- alternative surveillance sources are unavailable or poorly integrated;
- communication and navigation dependencies are disrupted simultaneously;
- incident-response responsibilities are unclear; or
- recovery procedures have not been tested under realistic conditions.
The critical question is therefore not simply whether ADS-B can be attacked. It is whether the aviation system can continue operating safely when ADS-B information becomes unreliable, unavailable or misleading.
Resilience Extends Beyond Prevention
Cybersecurity controls generally aim to prevent, detect and respond to malicious activity. Resilience goes further by asking how the system behaves before, during and after disruption.
A resilient surveillance environment should be able to:
- anticipate credible technical and operational threats;
- detect anomalies and distinguish them from ordinary system faults;
- absorb disruption without immediately compromising safety;
- transition effectively to alternative surveillance or procedural measures;
- maintain coordinated decision-making under pressure; and
- recover in a controlled way while capturing lessons for improvement.
This requires cooperation across engineering, cybersecurity, air traffic operations, safety management, governance and executive oversight. No single discipline can address the full challenge independently.
Context Matters
The appropriate resilience measures will also differ between operating environments. An airspace supported by multiple overlapping surveillance sources has different options from one that depends heavily on ADS-B because of geography, infrastructure limitations or cost.
For many African and other resource-constrained aviation environments, the solution cannot simply be to replicate expensive architectures developed elsewhere. Resilience strategies must reflect the actual operational context, available infrastructure, threat exposure, regulatory environment and capacity to sustain the proposed controls over time.
From Vulnerability to Operational Readiness
A mature approach to ADS-B resilience therefore evaluates more than technical vulnerabilities. It examines governance, operational continuity, human preparedness, system dependencies, fallback arrangements and the organisation’s ability to learn from disruption.
The objective is not to claim that failure can always be prevented. It is to ensure that disruption does not automatically become operational collapse.
ADS-B resilience is ultimately a systems challenge. Cybersecurity is essential—but it is only one part of the capability required to keep surveillance services safe, dependable and operationally effective under pressure.