Study of Threats and Security Aspects of Unmanned Ariel Vehicles

Abstract

Unmanned Ariel Vehicles (UAVs), commonly known as drones, are pilotless aircraft or robots that can fly to almost unrestrained locations. These UAVs can operate with or without human intervention while having complete autonomy and flexibility, making them the subject of concerted research over the past few decades. Also, UAVs have a broad range of applications, which are generic and specific, ranging from civilian to military usage. The UAV System is easily deployable and user-friendly because of its modular nature, consisting of the Flying Object, Base Control Station, and Communication Link. However, it also makes the UAV System prone to security threats in the context of Hardware, Software, and Communication Link. The UAV System being infrastructureless mainly operates through wireless communication links and can be attacked in various ways, such as spoofing, false data injection, fuzzing, jamming confidentiality, and integrity attacks. Hence, the primary security concern is to secure the data that controls the Flying Object and the data that consists of the information gathered. UAVs typically send the data to the ground station over a wireless link which attackers can easily target. To overcome these security threats, researchers and scientists have been continuously investigating the vulnerabilities and weaknesses of UAV systems and have proposed various countermeasures. In this work, an attempt has been made to study different types of UAV Systems, its applications along with security threats and their countermeasures.