A recent drone incident in Taiwan at such a light show shows that for security reasons, it is very important to embed network security in the use of drones.
Among the 800 drones used during the light show, 48 crashed during the light show of the "Drone Fireworks". The official report found "signal" or electromagnetic interference. However, no source of interference was found.
During the performance, 48 drones screened 800 drones at the Taiwan Lantern Festival in Taichung City. Although electromagnetic interference was detected before the performance, despite the intervention of the telecommunications police, the source of the interference was not found.
Taiwan Telecom police use detective guns and signal surveillance vehicles to identify unknown signals and interference sources. Although it is speculated that the interference will overlap with other radio frequency devices, it is rumored that the interference may be a deliberate action to protest drone operators’ violation of new government regulations that will take effect on March 31, 2020. According to the regulations, all weights UAVs over 250 grams must be registered, and the UAV can only fly 120 meters above the ground.
A turning point in innovation and recent seemingly positive news about drone light shows (or drone fireworks). In order to overcome the negative effects of traditional fireworks' environment, noise and fires, it is now necessary to adopt strategies to mitigate drone fireworks as safety and public precautions. Define the problem from multiple perspectives: If it does represent illegal interference by protesters, how can malicious operators use illegal protocol tampering or hijacking techniques to do? Suddenly, evil individuals can perform many group-based activities.
In addition (only from the perspective of Red Teamer), these light shows can be easily automated and pre-programmed. You need to wonder if the control connection has been blocked and covered by a preset path. In keeping with the creative design of malicious operators, there is likely to be room for unsafe work, or even counter-propaganda messages in the sky. Compared to sending these drones into crowds or busy helicopter dams, this is a limited attack option. Most importantly, the things that get the attention of the fireworks show attract a large crowd and are often supported by the city-this is an attractive target for malicious people and will bring a lot of fear, uncertainty and doubts to innovation and technology.
Electromagnetic interference or jamming is one of many methods used worldwide as an anti-drone solution. The jammer emits a strong radio frequency pulse similar to the target frequency, overwhelming the real signal and destroying the target receiving input signal.
The drone jammer can turn off the drone, but it can actually turn off the frequency that affects surrounding equipment, equipment or tools operating at the same frequency. With this in mind, since drones can operate on multiple frequencies in the range of 433 MHz to 5.8 GHz, most of which operate on 2.4 GHz and 5.8 GHz, an electromagnetic counter-drone solution (public and Commercial) can be very expensive. At the same time, the latter two frequencies are also Wi-Fi frequencies widely used in most smart cities today.
As an activist of rogue drones, it is easy to implement jammers or electronic jamming to suppress the use of drones. The ready-made low-power portable jammers on the market can effectively cut off the frequency of about 15 meters and expand them through amplifiers. However, the detection of interference is expensive and takes longer than the transmission of the interference frequency. Using a spectrum analyzer (often costing in the thousands) cannot provide the exact location of the jammer itself, and several data points are required before the searcher can determine a rough estimate of the jammer's location. At this point, the jammer may have reached its goal and the operator continues to move forward.