Hackers Are Able To Seize Control Of Consumer Drones

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According to this article, not only were FTC researchers able to seize control of three off-the-shelf consumer drones, they could take over the camera feeds and turn them off mid-flight as well. How long before the bad guys start making these?

This week at the PacSec security conference in Tokyo, researchers unveiled a new device that is capable of fully commandeering radio-controlled drones by exploiting a vulnerability in the frequency-hopping systems drone makers use to obfuscate and protect their radio communication. While the device isn’t available for sale, other hackers may soon find the vulnerability too.
 
One protocol... DSMX (by JR/Spektrum). There are many other protocols. DJI has their own, not to mention Futaba, FRSky, HK, Sanyo, Hitec, Airtronics, Graupner and many more. "Most commercial drones" is relative and I would say that DSMX does not have that kind of market share.
 
Willsonman said:
One protocol... DSMX (by JR/Spektrum). There are many other protocols. DJI has their own, not to mention Futaba, FRSky, HK, Sanyo, Hitec, Airtronics, Graupner and many more. "Most commercial drones" is relative and I would say that DSMX does not have that kind of market share.
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With enough knowledge, it shouldn't be difficult for your hacking device to read the active protocol and change its own to suit. Certainly a government agency could do so.
 
Didn't ISIS hack a US military drone and land it so it could be captured?
 
With all this automation going out there there's going to be a day where hacking is super duper illegal, in fact having the tools to hack (might like breaking into a lock) will be a crime in itself, oh you have a non-government approved router with FBI backdoors? Yup off to jail you!
 
DocSavage said:
With enough knowledge, it shouldn't be difficult for your hacking device to read the active protocol and change its own to suit. Certainly a government agency could do so.
Click to expand...

Each protocol uses different frequency hopping technology that utilizes different algorithms. Some radios can sense a congested 2.4Ghz area and will automatically narrow their frequency in which they operate to avoid interference. I was part of a world record attempt this past summer where 300 aircraft took off, only 171 succeeded in maintaining flight for 1 full minute. My airplane had a "brown out" so It flew into a soybean field so the sensitivity is there for the tech to know if it being interfered with. Some protocols have model match where the airplane's receiver will not bind unless it senses the unique signal (more like an initialization handshake) with the transmitter.

While the tech is interesting, I do believe radio manufacturers can cope with this and make more robust systems that are more secure.
 
Yawn. These are cheap toy drones and racing quads that would be vulnerable. Most modern consumer drones made in the past few years uses a digital link with encryption.

Big difference when commands are sent via analog frequencies versus encrypted data packets.
 
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