Nils Rodday, a security researcher at IBM, presented at Black Hat Asia how you can gain control of an expensive professional drone that usesIt is widely used by law enforcement, emergency services, and the private sector due to its lack of encryption.
Rodday mentioned that quadcopters costing 25.000 euros can be made hacked with hardware costing less than 35 euros, and some basic knowledge of radio communications.
The attacker can force the radio links used to control the drone from two kilometers away, and the owners will not be able to reconnect with the boat.
Rodday reported at the blackhat Asia conference in Singapore that the attackers through an Android application can fully control the drone, and made a show. Read the PDF at the end of the publication.
"You can break WEP WiFi encryption to disconnect the legitimate operator tablet and connect your own, but it should be 100 meters away," Rodday said.
"Regarding the connection Xbee using the drone can be bypassed with an attack Man-in-the-middle by injecting commands between the UAV and the telemetry box from two kilometers away.
"An intruder can redefine the packet path, blocking the operator, or let the packets pass, but I guess most attackers will not allow this."
For more details, read the presentation in PDF
