{"id":221669,"date":"2026-05-28T04:30:00","date_gmt":"2026-05-28T08:30:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/testing.news-you-need.com\/index.php\/2026\/05\/28\/he-calls-them-toys-but-ewu-professor-dan-tappan-is-making-devices-that-model-real-world-cybersecurity-vulnerabilities-news\/"},"modified":"2026-05-28T08:25:27","modified_gmt":"2026-05-28T12:25:27","slug":"he-calls-them-toys-but-ewu-professor-dan-tappan-is-making-devices-that-model-real-world-cybersecurity-vulnerabilities-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/testing.news-you-need.com\/index.php\/2026\/05\/28\/he-calls-them-toys-but-ewu-professor-dan-tappan-is-making-devices-that-model-real-world-cybersecurity-vulnerabilities-news\/","title":{"rendered":"He calls them toys, but EWU professor Dan Tappan is making devices that model real-world cybersecurity vulnerabilities | News"},"content":{"rendered":"

He calls them toys, but EWU professor Dan Tappan is making devices that model real-world cybersecurity vulnerabilities | News<\/a><\/p>\n

https:\/\/www.inlander.com\/news\/he-calls-them-toys-but-ewu-professor-dan-tappan-is-making-devices-that-model-real\/article_2220a795-1a54-4efa-8a8c-f233be2fc8ed.html<\/a><\/p>\n

Publish Date: 2026-05-28 04:30:00<\/a><\/p>\n

Source Domain: www.inlander.com<\/a><\/p>\n

Author: <\/a><\/p>\n

Using an unordered list, summarize the following article with between 4 and 8 key points. <\/p>\n

EWU professor Dan Tappan plans to build this\u00a0model plane that can pivot on gimbals.<\/p>\n

Rendering courtesy Dan Tappan<\/p>\n

Aerospace cybersecurity isn\u2019t necessarily a field that lends itself to oversimplification, but Dan Tappan doesn\u2019t mince words when he describes the project he\u2019s working on.\u201cI\u2019m building toys to play with,\u201d he says. \u201cThat\u2019s not the most detailed and academic wording there, but that\u2019s actually very much what we do in my classes. We get something to work and then we mess with it. It\u2019s to show how certain systems work. And then how they don\u2019t work.\u201d\u00a0As the program director for computer science and electrical engineering at Eastern Washington University, Tappan has big plans for the 17 toys he\u2019s ultimately hoping to develop and fabricate. Once completed, they\u2019ll exist as a suite of tabletop devices representing different phases of the real-world airport experience \u2014 from the moment a traveler parks their car to the point when they pick up their luggage at their destination.From the standpoint of airport security, Tappan says that starting at the parking garage makes sense.\u201cThis is something that the average person doesn\u2019t take into account,\u201d he explains. \u201cWe have this perspective that [a security breach] is going to be another 9\/11 Hollywood-style attack. But anything that disrupts this complex machinery of the aerospace ecosystem causes problems. If somebody messes with the parking garage and travelers can\u2019t get in, then pretty much everything else downstream is messed up.\u201dNot to be alarmist, but even after the stringent security measures and checkpoints that were implemented in the wake of the terrorist hijacking on Sept. 11, 2001, air travel remains especially vulnerable. According to Tappan and other cybersecurity experts, the main reason that malicious actors haven\u2019t yet put too much effort into disrupting airport operations is because there\u2019s not a lot of money to be made from it.But complacency would be a mistake. In his proposal for this project, Tappan cited Washington\u2019s own U.S. Sen. Maria Cantwell, who highlighted some concerning trends at a 2024 Congressional Hearing on Aviation Cybersecurity Threats. The senator used her opening remarks to note that aviation cyberattacks alone had increased 74% in the preceding four years. Then she shared her very recent firsthand experience of flying out of Sea-Tac after a hacker group had taken down the airport\u2019s display boards in a ransomware attack.Tappan intends for his devices to provide physical scaled-down models of objects like those display boards as well as baggage handling equipment, shuttles, networking systems, the plane itself and even the in-flight entertainment system that\u2019s embedded into the headrest.That hands-on hardware will be complemented by and connected to software controls, some of which are already being used in EWU\u2019s cybersecurity and computer science classes. The students will then learn how the software interfaces with those objects in what you might call experimental cause-and-effect exercises. The aim is to better understand the complex interplay known as mechatronics, which Tappen describes as \u201cthe glue that makes a coherent system of [disparate] systems.\u201dOne of the first devices from his aerospace cybersecurity suite will be a three-foot cube that contains a suspended plane. Though it won\u2019t be airborne (drones and RC planes are planned to come later), the gimballed plane will afford students the opportunity to perform a remote or simulated action and observe its effect in real time.\u201cIt reflects all of the actions that a real plane does. It can pitch up and down, roll left and right and yaw. All of the little flight control surfaces, the things you see moving on aircraft, are also on there,\u201d he says. \u201cSo it\u2019s basically just a small model airplane. But it\u2019s connected to a complex system that makes it look like it\u2019s really flying. And from that, then we can investigate things like what if something goes wrong? What are the effects if something breaks or something is hacked?\u201dThe concept for another device is an airport tram that resembles a model railroad, complete with signal light and gates that are connected to software control systems similar to those used by major airports.As an engineer and a longtime pilot, Tappan plans to build many of the prototypes himself over the next 18 months. Having those in hand as, in his words, \u201ca proof of concept\u201d might attract the interest of more partners, collaborators and funders, which could then expand the capabilities of the suite and even put it in more college classrooms.More importantly, the devices will help eliminate some of the abstraction that Tappan wrestles with when trying to demonstrate the practical impact of lines of code \u2014 especially if that understanding has the potential to avert disaster and save lives.\u201cWe have computers, and everybody knows what those look like,\u201d he says. \u201cSo these devices are meant to be \u2014 well, they play a lot of roles. They\u2019re learning tools, but they\u2019re also inspirational tools. What I\u2019m trying to do is just get students at all age levels engaged, get them curious and thinking about things, because that\u2019s where it starts.\u201d<\/p>\n

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