SECURING AVIATION NETWORKS THROUGH BLOCKCHAIN: ARCHITECTURE, CHALLENGES, AND SOLUTIONS
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.28925/2663-4023.2026.33.1127Keywords:
Blockchain, Distributed Ledger Technology, Permissioned Blockchain, Aviation, Supply Chain, Traceability, Governance, Auditability, Access Control, Privacy, Resilience, Smart ContractsAbstract
The aviation industry depends on data integrity across supply chains spanning OEMs, MRO organizations, airlines, lessors, and national regulators. Centralized data management systems — still dominant in the sector — expose the ecosystem to single points of failure and provide limited traceability of millions of aircraft parts circulating annually. This paper presents a structured review of blockchain-based security architectures for aviation networks, synthesized from 14 peer-reviewed sources published between 2018 and 2025, retrieved from IEEE Xplore, ScienceDirect, SpringerLink, ACM Digital Library, and Wiley/Hindawi. On this basis, a thirteen-step design method is proposed for integrating permissioned blockchain with distributed cloud infrastructure in aviation environments. The method is grounded in quantitative acceptance criteria — throughput ≥ 500 TPS, smart contract execution latency < 200 ms (p95), system availability 99.9% — and maps each design phase to specific security controls (integrity, access control, auditability, privacy, resilience, governance). Core mechanisms are formalized via hash-chain integrity verification, attribute-based access control functions, zero-knowledge proof verification, and a composite pre-ledger trust-scoring model. The principal finding: permissioned blockchain architectures — Hyperledger Fabric in particular — can support aviation requirements for immutable audit trails, decentralized identity management, and regulatory compliance with EASA and FAA; adoption remains constrained by organizational readiness and the unresolved GIGO problem at the ledger boundary.
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