The Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAV) or drones industry has become a vast worldwide technological sensation. The extensive use of drones and UAVs has made UAS very popular for the public and the private sector, like the Agricultural industry, Armed Forces, law enforcement, meteorological agencies, medical services, environmental companies, oil refineries, windmill manufacturers, farm owners, and many more. In the next decade, drones may become a norm in day-to-day life, just as cell phones are a norm today, which they were not only a few years ago. Cybercriminals are already aware of this and always searching for new ways to use drone technology to extract sensitive information and create chaos.
Since drones are remotely controlled, their chances of being hijacked by bad actors are considerable. Major cyber domain threats caused by drone activity are Downlink intercept, GPS spoofing, data exploitation, and many more. Therefore, organizations must also be conscious of the risks and take necessary measures to secure this valuable technology.
How can we mitigate the prevailing threats?
1. Understand The Security Risks To Your Business With A Managed Vulnerability Assessment every six months.
Organizations must identify, quantify and address the security vulnerabilities within their company’s infrastructure, including on-premise and cloud networks.
Securing your platform as you would do with any network device. Some valuable tips are-
- Update the drone’s firmware and apply a manufacturer’s ppatch.
- Use strong passwords for the base station application.
- Use updated anti-virus software for your drone controller device.
- Subscribe to a VPN service to encrypt your connection.
- Limit the number of devices that can connect to the base station.
- Use the “Return to Home” (RTH) mode to ensure drone recovery from a hijack situation.
Counter Drones
Countermeasures should focus primarily on space protection. It is important to be able to detect drones efficiently. Thermal cameras, RF scanners, high-frequency radars, acoustic sensors, and sophisticated machine learning and AI algorithms are used for this purpose. However, drones’ small size and low speed make their detection difficult within a highly cluttered environment.
Other techniques involve geofencing software, which creates a virtual border around an area, prohibiting unauthorized drone flight.
Workforce Training
Workforce training on cyber security is essential to help you better understand, detect, respond and monitor security risks across your business.
Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) software
Integrating ERP solutions to provide enhanced visibility, integration, agility, and response. It also includes technology that helps maintain and sustain UAVs and other defense assets.