A Survey on Security of Unmanned Aerial Vehicle Systems: Attacks and Countermeasures

Xiaomin Wei, Jianfeng Ma, Cong Sun

Abstract: With the wide application of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), security problems of UAV systems are gradually exposed, which bring great risks to UAV application. This article surveys the security of UAV systems, including attacks and countermeasures. First, the UAV system architecture is analyzed to identify security vulnerabilities. A UAV system contains the hardware platform, software platform, radio communication link, and application software. The navigation, guidance, and control systems are three core components in software platform. Then, security threats and attacks are analyzed and categorized from the view of cyberspace security, including spoofing attacks, reply attacks, jamming attacks, Denial-of-Service (DoS) attacks, eavesdropping attacks, side-channel attacks, manipulation attacks, and system intrusion attacks. Countermeasures are categorized based on the UAV system architecture and what attacks each countermeasure type can defend are also summarized. Compared to existing survey on security of a UAV system, more attack types and corresponding countermeasures are concluded. Finally, open issues and corresponding countermeasures on the security of UAV systems are discussed to guide the future research trend, including existing countermeasure weaknesses and challenges, and new issues and challenges.