Game of Drones

The use of drones for surveillance is no longer in the realms of science fiction. We are now in an era in which anyone with a drone equipped with a video camera can use it to invade a subject’s privacy by streaming the subject in his/her private space over an encrypted first person view (FPV) channel.

Although many methods have been suggested to detect nearby drones, they all suffer from the same shortcoming: they cannot identify exactly what is being captured.

Drones have been used for photographing sensitive locations. One of the most notable concerns about UAS platforms stems from their potential to silently monitor and record their surroundings.

The first technique to detect a drone camera illicitly capturing video is revealed in a study published by Ben-Gurion University of the Negev (BGU) and Weizmann Institute of Science cyber security researchers. The study addresses increasing concerns about the proliferation of drone use for personal and business applications and how it is impinging on privacy and safety.

 The researchers claim that their findings may help thwart privacy invasion attacks that are becoming more common with increasing drone use.

This could have significant impact for the military and for consumers because a victim can now legally prove that a neighbor was invading their privacy.

The researchers explained that their research is about methods to detect whether a drone is being used by its operator to stream a specific target which can be either a building or a person. By analyzing the radio signals that are sent from the drone to the controller they found ways to detect if a specific target is being streamed or not.

The advantage of this research is that someone using only a laptop and an object that flickers can detect if someone is using a drone to spy on them.

While it has been possible to detect a drone, now someone can also tell if it is recording a video of your location or something else.

While most people don’t yet equate drones with security risks, they pose an array of threats. Implications for security industry include sensitive locations (clients’ residences, private properties, offices, stadiums, public venues, etc) can be scouted by drones and intelligence can be gathered, which could reveal weaknesses in the security arrangement and leave a site vulnerable to attacks.

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