Software protection - Putting COTS back in the box

Off-the-shelf software is now a part of avionics design. But how do you stop third-party code from upsetting other parts of the system? Standards call for it to be boxed off. The avionics industry has witnessed a major shift toward integrated modular avionics (IMA) in recent years, and IMA architectures and standards are still evolving as they gain industry acceptance. This presents significant challenges for standards organisations, OEMs and commercial vendors alike. However it is clear that standards-based architectures, such as ARINC 653, will provide greater flexibility and portability and enable existing federated applications to be reused in an IMA environment.