Empirical Analysis of MAVLink Protocol Vulnerability for Attacking Unmanned Aerial Vehicles
Recently, unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), or the so-called drones, have been used in various applications. In particular, UAVs are used for rescue systems, disaster detection, and military purposes, as well as for leisure and commercial purposes. UAVs that are controlled over networks by ground con...
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
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IEEE
2018-01-01
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| Series: | IEEE Access |
| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/8425627/ |
| _version_ | 1818914487802003456 |
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| author | Young-Min Kwon Jaemin Yu Byeong-Moon Cho Yongsoon Eun Kyung-Joon Park |
| author_facet | Young-Min Kwon Jaemin Yu Byeong-Moon Cho Yongsoon Eun Kyung-Joon Park |
| author_sort | Young-Min Kwon |
| collection | DOAJ |
| description | Recently, unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), or the so-called drones, have been used in various applications. In particular, UAVs are used for rescue systems, disaster detection, and military purposes, as well as for leisure and commercial purposes. UAVs that are controlled over networks by ground control stations (GCS) can provide various services with expanded activity area. It is thus of critical importance to investigate the vulnerability of the drone system. In this paper, we focus on UAVs controlled by GCS over networks. We analyze the vulnerability of the micro-air-vehicle communication (MAVLink) protocol, which is one of the most widely adopted communication protocols for GCS-based control of UAVs. Then, by exploiting the vulnerability of the MAVLink protocol, we propose an attack methodology that can disable an ongoing mission of a UAV. Our empirical study confirms that the proposed attack can stop the attacked UAV and disable the mission. |
| first_indexed | 2024-12-19T23:47:10Z |
| format | Article |
| id | doaj.art-04fb575315cd46f9a5c0c194c0b2ca01 |
| institution | Directory Open Access Journal |
| issn | 2169-3536 |
| language | English |
| last_indexed | 2024-12-19T23:47:10Z |
| publishDate | 2018-01-01 |
| publisher | IEEE |
| record_format | Article |
| series | IEEE Access |
| spelling | doaj.art-04fb575315cd46f9a5c0c194c0b2ca012022-12-21T20:01:15ZengIEEEIEEE Access2169-35362018-01-016432034321210.1109/ACCESS.2018.28632378425627Empirical Analysis of MAVLink Protocol Vulnerability for Attacking Unmanned Aerial VehiclesYoung-Min Kwon0https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1495-2163Jaemin Yu1Byeong-Moon Cho2Yongsoon Eun3Kyung-Joon Park4https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4807-6461Department of Information and Communication Engineering, Daegu Gyeongbuk Institute of Science and Technology, Daegu, South KoreaDepartment of Information and Communication Engineering, Daegu Gyeongbuk Institute of Science and Technology, Daegu, South KoreaDepartment of Information and Communication Engineering, Daegu Gyeongbuk Institute of Science and Technology, Daegu, South KoreaDepartment of Information and Communication Engineering, Daegu Gyeongbuk Institute of Science and Technology, Daegu, South KoreaDepartment of Information and Communication Engineering, Daegu Gyeongbuk Institute of Science and Technology, Daegu, South KoreaRecently, unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), or the so-called drones, have been used in various applications. In particular, UAVs are used for rescue systems, disaster detection, and military purposes, as well as for leisure and commercial purposes. UAVs that are controlled over networks by ground control stations (GCS) can provide various services with expanded activity area. It is thus of critical importance to investigate the vulnerability of the drone system. In this paper, we focus on UAVs controlled by GCS over networks. We analyze the vulnerability of the micro-air-vehicle communication (MAVLink) protocol, which is one of the most widely adopted communication protocols for GCS-based control of UAVs. Then, by exploiting the vulnerability of the MAVLink protocol, we propose an attack methodology that can disable an ongoing mission of a UAV. Our empirical study confirms that the proposed attack can stop the attacked UAV and disable the mission.https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/8425627/UAVUASdronesMAVLinknetwork attackDoS |
| spellingShingle | Young-Min Kwon Jaemin Yu Byeong-Moon Cho Yongsoon Eun Kyung-Joon Park Empirical Analysis of MAVLink Protocol Vulnerability for Attacking Unmanned Aerial Vehicles IEEE Access UAV UAS drones MAVLink network attack DoS |
| title | Empirical Analysis of MAVLink Protocol Vulnerability for Attacking Unmanned Aerial Vehicles |
| title_full | Empirical Analysis of MAVLink Protocol Vulnerability for Attacking Unmanned Aerial Vehicles |
| title_fullStr | Empirical Analysis of MAVLink Protocol Vulnerability for Attacking Unmanned Aerial Vehicles |
| title_full_unstemmed | Empirical Analysis of MAVLink Protocol Vulnerability for Attacking Unmanned Aerial Vehicles |
| title_short | Empirical Analysis of MAVLink Protocol Vulnerability for Attacking Unmanned Aerial Vehicles |
| title_sort | empirical analysis of mavlink protocol vulnerability for attacking unmanned aerial vehicles |
| topic | UAV UAS drones MAVLink network attack DoS |
| url | https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/8425627/ |
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