This airport is the third busiest airport in India. More than 32 million passengers walked through the gates last year. They recently felt the need to upgrade their IT and network infrastructure. With the expected surge in air traffic, they aimed to make it future-proof.

Netcon helped them achieve their goals. You can read more about that case study here. Now, the airport can handle 60 million annual passengers with ease.

The Cybersecurity Challenge

When you deploy technology at such a scale - 50000+ IP endpoints and 50+ airport subsystems - securing it against cyber threats is one of the biggest challenges. With more than 20000 active users connected to the network and 200+ applications and Virtual Machines running, cybersecurity is paramount and a non-negotiable.

The airport authorities, along with us, felt the following were some of the critical security concerns.

Insider Threats: Employees at various levels with various levels of access can be a potential threat. And we must deploy a zero-trust policy.

Airport Wi-Fi: The users connected to the airport Wi-Fi that is open to all can penetrate the network and cause significant damage or leak data. The users can request access to malicious, dodgy websites that might be a threat to the airport network environment.

Network Security: Segmenting and securing the network where more than 50 subsystems are running simultaneously is a necessity. You do not want the ones with access to one system accessing the others.

Data Integrity: To prevent data leakage or tampering

Application Security: With 200+ applications, cybercriminals can exploit APIs. Applications can be a target for zero-day vulnerabilities as well.

Let us explore how we solved these concerns.

Fortifying Their Cybersecurity Posture

Deploying cybersecurity measures at such a scale is a task in itself.

Network Traffic Analytics to Protect Against Insider Threats

Insider threats pose a unique challenge. With a zero-trust policy, you deliberately do not trust anyone within the organization. Knowingly or unknowingly, they can be a cybersecurity hazard. On such an elaborate and extensive network infrastructure at an airport of this scale, the concern is even more pronounced.

To negate this, we deployed a strict and bleeding-edge network traffic analytics tool that continuously monitors and analyses the network activity. It will immediately alert and notify the authorities when it detects any suspicious activity. And because we have deployed a software-defined network, it makes network visualization a breeze. Hence, it is easy to pinpoint the threat and negate it instantly.

Guarding Wi-Fi and Internet Activity With Robust DNS Security

To prevent access to malicious domains, IP addresses, and web applications that can act as a gateway for cybercriminals, we deployed strict DNS security. With its advanced features like a threat intelligence database, real-time analysis, and instant reporting, we ensured web safety for both internal and external users.

Data and Web Application Security

The airport has its own data center and a backup. To protect its integrity, we deployed real-time data center analytics. It analyses every single process within the data center in real-time and provides all-around workload protection from malicious activities, sitting perfectly with our zero-trust cybersecurity model.

To protect against the targeted attacks on system applications, we installed two web application firewalls(WAF) - one for internal traffic and one for internet traffic.

DDoS Attack Protection

A DDoS (Distributed Denial of Service) attack is when a flood of fake traffic is sent to a flight information system, booking and reservation system, or any other system to overwhelm it, so it becomes slow or goes offline. A load balancer here can help in two ways:

1. Distributing Traffic: By spreading out incoming traffic across multiple servers, a load balancer makes it harder for a DDoS attack to overwhelm any single server.

2. Filtering: Our advanced load balancers identify and block fake or malicious traffic before it even reaches the servers, reducing the impact of a DDoS attack.

Outcome?

The cybersecurity measures at the airport have fortified the network and IT infrastructure to be exceptionally resilient against a myriad of cybersecurity threats. Since the implementation, there have been zero successful cyber-attacks, and potential threats have been identified and neutralized before causing any harm.

Furthermore, the advanced DNS security has made the airport network environment safer for both internal and external users.

Data and web application security measures have safeguarded the integrity of critical information. The real-time data center analytics have flagged suspicious activities, and the web application firewalls have stopped targeted threats in their tracks. These mechanisms have provided robust protection without impacting system performance, thereby aligning perfectly with our zero-trust cybersecurity model.

DDoS Attack Protection, integrated through advanced load balancers, has brought an additional layer of security that not only protects against targeted attacks but also ensures that essential systems remain operational and efficient.

Concluding It

Through a well-crafted strategy and by deploying advanced cybersecurity measures, we have significantly elevated the airport's security posture. It has mitigated insider threats and upheld the network integrity. Web and data applications are more secure than ever, and the solution has mitigated the risks associated with DDoS attacks.

Our partnership with the airport is a testament to the efficacy of deploying cutting-edge cybersecurity solutions at scale. By addressing its unique challenges, we have made BIAL safer and future-proofed it against evolving cybersecurity threats. It goes to show that no matter how large or complex the IT landscape is, with the right strategy and tools, security does not have to be compromised.