Airline industry group the International Air Transport Association (IATA) has launched a new online toolkit to help companies in the aviation sector protect themselves against a range of external threats – from cybersecurity breaches and geopolitical upheaval to natural disasters and civil unrest.
The AVSEC Insight platform is aimed at helping companies identify potential security threats and risks.
“Monitoring risks is both difficult and time-consuming, particularly for airlines with international operations,” said Matthew Vaughan, IATA’s director of aviation security and cyber.
“Adding destinations means more intelligence collection and monitoring is required. AVSEC Insight responds to this challenge by gathering risk-related information from a wide variety of sources, including niche and local-language news media as well as NOTAMs (Notice to Air Missions) and other official sources. It enables users to manage and identify business risks at early stages, monitor them in real time, and conduct post event analysis. The tool covers threats and continuity risks from natural disasters, civil unrest and protests, geopolitical developments, transnational crime and cybersecurity to name a few,” Mr Vaughan said.
The subscription-based service provides an intuitive user-friendly interface. Information can be customized to risk profile and operational needs, by country, city, airport or flight information region. Better and faster identification of risk means safer and more secure operations and resource optimisation, IATA said.
“Recent events have shown the enormous value of being able to track, assess and respond to potential risks in real time, particularly in a dynamic and fast changing industry such as aviation. AVSEC Insight is a vital tool for any organisation in the aviation value chain or that manages mobile workforces and/or the time-sensitive movement of assets,” said Nick Careen, IATA’s senior vice president of operations, safety and security.
