General Aviation (GA) Electronic Flight Bags

The Rise of Connected Electronic Flight Bags

General aviation pilots increasingly rely on tablet-based Electronic Flight Bags (EFBs) for real-world flight planning, weather updates, aeronautical charts, and weight-and-balance calculations.

Common Vulnerability Classes in EFB Applications

Security assessments across multiple commercial EFB products reveal recurring flaws in insecure API communications, unauthenticated local data storage, and weak cryptographic validation of aeronautical charts.

Risks of Untrusted Data Feeds in Flight Planning

Corrupted navigation data or spoofed weather overlays delivered via insecure cloud backends can mislead pilots during flight preparation or cause situational awareness failures in flight.

Developer Guidance for Hardening EFB Software

Mitigating security risks requires EFB developers to enforce certificate pinning, sanitize external sensor feeds from portable ADS-B receivers, and validate navigation database integrity.