Drone Ecosystem: Architecture for Configuring and Securing UAVs

Unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) are small aircraft that are guided autonomously, or by remote control, or both. Generally, these UAVs are used for providing aerial views when tackling complex scenarios in dangerous locations where human intervention is not possible. Internet of Drones (IoD) is a new term that has been created for separating general IoT devices like smart refrigerators, bulbs, cars, etc. from special use-cases drones. IoD is an infrastructure designed to provide access and control of UAVs over the cellular or internet via the ground station. The use of insecure drones in the civilian domain risks the general population to a very high privacy breach, as well as other domains such as policing, medical support, public safety, and industrial delivery system. Therefore, the concept of cybersecurity issues, privacy risks, and vulnerabilities introduced in the UAV ecosystem is important and is explored through this work. This research paper deals with UAV infrastructure and lays out a plan for the IoD communication architecture based on QUIC messaging protocol rather than TCP over the 5G cellular network. According to our research, over 87% of the UAVs are vulnerable to at least seven types of attack vectors and their variants that we have mentioned. Only high-end UAVs that are used for military reconnaissance and recovery operations are thoroughly secured to evade basic attacks but are still vulnerable to sophisticated attacks.