Rail securitySensors can help railways detect, cope with electromagnetic attacks

Published 15 July 2015

Eleven years ago the Madrid train bombings proved how much European railway security still needed to be improved. Now that rail equipment — like in most other industries — is increasingly standardized and connected, however, another, more insidious type of offensive has become likely: electromagnetic (EM) attacks. An EU-funded project has developed detection technologies that can help the sector face this new threat. Virginie Deniau, coordinator of the SECRET project, discusses the devices developed by her team to identify electromagnetic (EM) attacks as they occur so that operators can switch to a safe railway mode.

Eleven years ago the Madrid train bombings proved how much European railway security still needed to be improved. Now that rail equipment — like in most other industries — is increasingly standardized and connected, however, another, more insidious type of offensive has become likely: electromagnetic (EM) attacks. An EU-funded project has developed detection technologies that can help the sector face this new threat.

Did you know that soon, there will be as many connected devices as there are humans on Earth? Five billion of these devices are now in use and this number is expected to reach twenty-five billion in 2020. Sure, each new type of connected device brings us closer to the advent of smart cities and all of their foreseen benefits. But on the other hand, as recent news has shown, it makes hackers and other tech enthusiasts with bad intentions a growing threat to security.

CORDIS reports that in the European railway sector for instance, the homogenization of network technologies and the increasing use of wireless communications have made the scenario of an EM attack very likely. Communication jammers are easy to use and available for anyone to purchase on the Internet, which means that communications could potentially be jammed, with trains being delayed, blocked or even diverted.

To get the sector ready to face this new threat, the SECRET (SECurity of Railways against Electromagnetic aTtacks) project has developed a set of detection sensors capable of identifying EM attacks as they occur, so that rail equipment operators can switch the network to a “safe mode” immune to the specific type of EM attack being used.

Virginie Deniau, coordinator of SECRET, discusses with research*eu results magazine the likelihood of the EM attack scenario, the devices developed by her team and how the sector will soon need to adapt to this new reality.