Researchers demonstrate how easy it is to hijack a drone

Fox News reports: A small surveillance drone flies over an Austin stadium, diligently following a series of GPS waypoints that have been programmed into its flight computer. By all appearances, the mission is routine.

Suddenly, the drone veers dramatically off course, careering eastward from its intended flight path. A few moments later, it is clear something is seriously wrong as the drone makes a hard right turn, streaking toward the south. Then, as if some phantom has given the drone a self-destruct order, it hurtles toward the ground. Just a few feet from certain catastrophe, a safety pilot with a radio control saves the drone from crashing into the field.

From the sidelines, there are smiles all around over this near-disaster. Professor Todd Humphreys and his team at the University of Texas at Austin’s Radionavigation Laboratory have just completed a successful experiment: illuminating a gaping hole in the government’s plan to open US airspace to thousands of drones.

They could be turned into weapons.

“Spoofing a GPS receiver on a UAV is just another way of hijacking a plane,” Humphreys told Fox News.

In other words, with the right equipment, anyone can take control of a GPS-guided drone and make it do anything they want it to.

“Spoofing” is a relatively new concern in the world of GPS navigation. Until now, the main problem has been GPS jammers, readily available over the Internet, which people use to, for example, hide illicit use of a GPS-tracked company van. It’s also believed Iran brought down that U.S. spy drone last December by jamming its GPS, forcing it into an automatic landing mode after it lost its bearings.

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2 thoughts on “Researchers demonstrate how easy it is to hijack a drone

  1. Norman

    My my, isn’t this interesting. So I suppose the local police will say that someone hijacked the drone they were using to track Granny as she was going to the store, which resulted in crashing into the local spy shop, or some other business? The human element that’s involved here is just short of idiocy. We are doomed as a nation of free thinking/doing peoples.

  2. dickerson3870

    RE: “…the drone veers dramatically off course, careering eastward from its intended flight path. A few moments later, it is clear something is seriously wrong” ~ Fox News

    MY COMMENT: Yes, those career changes can be treacherous for middle-aged drones. Perhaps they should settle for careening. But then, the source is Fox News, so I guess we should take all of this with a grain of salt. Or perhaps with a quart of grain alcohol. Then you would see some real careening. But hopefully not any careering, because friends don’t let friends drive drunk!

    P.S. Apparently Fox News has “disappeared” this article from their website, but it is still available here.

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