Question

The Question:

Drones use the internet protocols for theircommunications. That is, the drone is a wireless access point. The drone controller (usually a smartphone) connects to that access point and they communicate using the UDP protocol. This communication includes:

• the commands from the controller to the drone,

• status information (height, battery level, etc.) from the drone back to the controller, and

• the video signal from the drone back to the controller.

Please answer the following questions briefly (and in your own words):

1. If the wireless connection is not encrypted, could the connection be eavesdropped?

2. What would it mean to DoS or DDoS the drone? How might you do this?

3. What are some things you could do with a man-in-the-middle attack on the drone?.

Answer 1

Question 1)
Answer:
Yes, in case, the wireless communication is unencrypted, the attackers, hackers, or bad actors could eavesdrop using another device. The hacker might logically place the intruder device between the drone and the controller such as a smartphone, eavesdropping on the connection. The signals sent between the drone and the controller can be interrupted and eavesdropped in between and analyzed. In one of the possible attack scenarios, the attacker can use the control ports on the controller interrupting the operation from the user using the smartphone app as the controller and eavesdrop on the video stream sent from the drone to the controller, or make changes in the configuration and save and submit the newly changed configurations here. Thus, it is possible to eavesdrop on the video stream of the drone breaching the Wi-Fi connection, in case, the Wi-Fi network is unencrypted from the start.

Question 2)
Answer:
Denial-of-Service (DoS) or Distributed Denial-of-Service (DDoS) the drone means an attacker makes an attempt, making it impossible to deliver a service. The drone's availability will be compromised. Whereas in a DoS attack, the malicious requests or data is sent by only one system. In a DDoS attack, on the other hand, the malicious requests or data are sent from multiple systems. DoS attacks are the reasons for network availability issues that influence critical Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) applications, for example, video streaming functionality. DoS could cause either a logic attack or a resource attack. DoS logic attack exploits existing software vulnerabilities and weaknesses causing remote devices such as drones to crash or simply significantly degrade the drone's performance. DoS resource attacks overwhelm or flood the innocent or the victim's computer, smartphone, and other related devices, and network resources, sending constant streams of spurious packets.

Question 3)
Answer:
Some things that could be done with a Man-In-The-Middle (MITM) attack carried out on the drone:
* The attacker can carry out a MITM attack sending the malicious command with a sequence number always higher than the one sent from the legitimate user.
* A simple and physical MITM attack, in layman terms, such as an attacker physically possessing the drone without any authorization can make changes to the drone's hardware, component, or the entire device, or he/she can cause damage, break it, to the drone, simply steal it, etc.
* The attacker can easily get the drone off track and hijack it through MITM. The attacker can infiltrate the user's Wi-Fi network with even a very little computational power fooling and derailing the drone commanding falsified information.
* The attacker can crash the drone.
* He/she can manipulate the drone's behavior so it lands in a hostile location.