Researchers discover a backdoor in the widely available drones that lets anyone hijack itConsumer drones
Consumer drones
Drones or unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) have moved from being a military toy to commercial consumer sector within the past few years. Companies find it relatively cheap to produce, tiny, personal UAVs and it can be purchased by anybody save in select countries where drones are banned due to security reasons. The commercial drones are used for variety of purposes like advanced photography, capturing sports, hobby and even pizza delivery. A French company Parrot has been relatively successful company which markets AR Drones. Now a Indian security researcher Rahul Sasi has discovered a backdoor in the AR Drones. This backdoor has been exploited by him to create a malware called Maldrone. Parrot’s the AR quadcopter helicopter drone which is controllable via smartphone, tablet, Nvidia Shield console and Epson Moverio display, among others has been demonstrated by him to be vulnerable to a newly-created malware Maldrone. Rahul says the malware is silently installed on a drone, and allows hackers to control the device remotely and conduct surveillance. He has released a demo video of Maldrone
The discovery of the backdoor in a drone can be a big problem because drones can be used for horrible things if controlled by cyber criminals and terrorists. Remember drones are not only great hobby or past time anymore, they are flying weapons in wrong hands.
