Cybersecurity is an area of IT that is constantly evolving which makes protecting the National Airspace System (NAS) and its equipment a complex task. The Surface Surveillance System’s Radar Support Facility (RSF) houses the infrastructure used to analyze, produce, and test Airport Surveillance Detection Equipment (ASDE) and Runway Status Lights (RWSL) engineering products. The RSF is essential to keeping Surface Surveillance products operational, which provides Air Traffic Controllers with improved situational awareness at 44 of the busiest airports in the nation. The RSF was built more than a decade ago when cybersecurity concerns and policy were vastly different than what they are today. Surface Surveillance management prioritized cybersecurity by initiating projects to adapt RSF infrastructure to the latest security requirements.
In June 2022, after a routine network scan, resulting in the severing of all remote connections to critical RSF equipment, the Surface Surveillance Systems had to find a solution to prevent operational impact. This disconnection occurred while Oklahoma City was in maximum telework status due to COVID-19, risking the production capability of Second Level Engineering and the ability to adequately support its customers and the NAS.
Fortunately, Surface Surveillance had an ongoing project to convert RSF assets over to the Enterprise-Operational Support Environment (E-OSE). This project was immediately realigned to reestablish remote connection from the Engineer’s AIT laptops to the OKC RSF assets, effectively resolving the unexpected disconnection. This RSF remote connectivity and operation capacity restoration was made possible through superb cross organizational teamwork and communication. The Surface Surveillance Team (AJW-144) leaned on the expertise of E-OSE’s, Robert Bortu, IT Specialist and Christian Pol, Security Engineer, who realigned and prioritized their efforts to accommodate Surface Surveillance’s needs.
Within one month of receiving requirements, Robert and Christian stood up 13 Virtual Desktop Interfaces, creating 29 user accounts including an encrypted storage server, while attending various review boards. They both worked tirelessly day and night to bring Surface Surveillance requirements to reality. Their professionalism and commitment to the mission combined with the hard work from AJW-144’s team members, Kyunghyun Kim, Computer Engineer, Randall Price, Security Specialist and Rodney O’Dell, Security Engineer, enabled Surface Surveillance to seamlessly go from requirements-gathering to implementation in just under 2 months!
