What You Need To Know About Cyber Threats To Drones

• The usage of drones has gone beyond just military purposes. Filmmaking, photography, and surveillance are among the many industries that are deploying drones for multiple purposes.
• The increase in usage has led to cybercriminals using drones as a part of their attacks.

The drone market today

Drones are unmanned ariel vehicles that were traditionally used in the defense forces. Although they are still widely used in this field, a number of other sectors are employing drones.

• In fact, Amazon is looking to use drones for delivery in the near future.
• With the market steadily growing, drones are becoming accessible and affordable for a larger section of the world’s population.

Cyber threats to drones

Considering the current scenario of drones, there is a risk of attackers using them for malicious activities or hacking them to gather data without consent.

• Hackers may employ drones as spying devices to collect data. With an advanced microphone, they can also eavesdrop on conversations. This can affect the privacy of citizens as well as collect data from confidential government locations.
• Fake signals can be fed that tamper with the Global Positioning System (GPS) of the drones. This can cause massive impacts for military drones.
• Small computers can be attached to drones to exploit WiFi, Bluetooth, or Radio-frequency identification vulnerabilities in restricted areas.
• Drones are small and don’t make much noise making them hard to detect.

Detecting malicious drones

Researchers are working on ways to detect malicious drones. Some of the measures include:

• Deploying radio-frequency scanners that look for specific transmissions from drones.
• Acoustic sensors that match the drone sound against a signature database for a match
• Geofencing that involves setting up a virtual border around a physical location to detect when drones enter the marked area.

These methods come with their own set of drawbacks. There are several other methods available to detect malicious drones.