Avionic equipment with single use signing of a transmitted message and associated avionic system, transmission method and computer program

• US 10,484,403 B2
• Filed: 10/19/2017
• Issued: 11/19/2019
• Est. Priority Date: 10/27/2016
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Thales SA
• Original Assignee: Thales SA
• Inventors: Belfy, Henri, Tainturier, Vincent, Causse, Jean-Arnaud
• Primary Examiner(s): Murphy, J. Brant
• Application Number:
  US15/787,941
• Publication Number:
  US 20180124075A1
• Time in Patent Office: 761 Days
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 12/40019 Details regarding a bus master
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 2012/4028 the transportation system being an aircraft
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 63/123 received data contents, e.g. message integrity
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 63/1416 Event detection, e.g. attack signature detection
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/12 specially adapted for proprietary or special-purpose networking environments, e.g. medical networks, sensor networks, networks in vehicles or remote metering networks
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 9/0643 Hash functions, e.g. MD5, SHA, HMAC or f9 MAC
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 9/3247 involving digital signatures
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 12/106 Packet or message integrity

Abstract

An avionic equipment unit, intended to be on board an aircraft, including a calculating module configured to calculate a signature associated with a data field, the calculated signature depending on the data field, and a transmission module configured to transmit a message to another avionic equipment unit on board the aircraft, the message including the data field and the associated calculated signature, the calculated signature being unique for each data field and for each respective message transmission.

Claims

1. An avionic equipment unit, intended to be on board an aircraft, the avionic equipment unit comprising:

a processor for calculating a signature associated with a data field, the calculated signature depending on the data field; and

a transmitter configured to transmit a message to another avionic equipment unit on board the aircraft, the message including the data field and the associated signature calculated by said processor,

wherein the calculated signature further depends on a preceding signature associated with the data field of a last message transmitted by said transmitter, such that the calculated signature is unique for each data field and for each message transmitted by said transmitter.

2. The avionic equipment unit according to claim 1, wherein, when the signature to be calculated corresponds to a first message to be transmitted, the preceding signature is formed by a hazard.

3. The avionic equipment unit according to claim 2, wherein the hazard is obtained from a pseudo-random algorithm and a physical entropy source.

4. The avionic equipment unit according to claim 3, wherein the hazard depends on a value of the clock of a computer calculating the hazard.

5. The avionic equipment unit according to claim 4, wherein the value of the clock is a time instant of the first execution by the computer of a software application configured to calculate said hazard.

6. The avionic equipment unit according to claim 1, wherein said processor calculates the signature further as a function of a private key, the private key being known by the other avionic equipment unit for which the message is intended.

7. The avionic equipment unit according to claim 1, wherein the avionic equipment unit complies with standard ARINC 664, and said transmitter transmits a message corresponding to a protocol according to standard ARINC 664.

8. An avionic system comprising at least two avionic equipment units connected to one another by a communication link, wherein at least one of said avionic equipment units is according to claim 1, and wherein at least one other of said avionic equipment units comprises:

a receiver receiving the transmitted message including the data field and the associated calculated signature; and

a verifier verifying consistency between the data field and the associated calculated signature.

9. A method for transmitting a message via an avionic equipment unit, intended to be on board an aircraft, the method comprising:

calculating a signature associated with a data field, the calculated signature depending on the data field; and

transmitting a message to another avionic equipment unit on board the aircraft, the message including the data field and the associated calculated signature,

wherein the calculated signature further depends on a preceding signature associated with the data field of a last message transmitted by said transmitting, such that the calculated signature is unique for each data field and for each transmitting of a message.

10. A non-transitory computer-readable medium including a computer program comprising software instructions which, when executed by a computer, implement a method according to claim 9.