NAVISP supports cybersecurity for aviation: Final presentation of CyTEF project to verify the resilience of drones against cyberattacks

Last Updated: 29/09/2022 06:16     Created at: 29/09/2022 06:16

DronePort, Belgium

The detection of cybersecurity attacks against drones has been demonstrated in a successful proof of concept test facility at DronePort in Belgium. Unmanned autonomous vehicles (UAVs) are increasingly used for both civil and military applications and are vulnerable to cyberattacks due to the availability of low-cost RF equipment such as jammers.  

During the final presentation of the NAVISP EL3-002 Cyber Security Test and Evaluation Facility (CyTEF) project on Friday 23rd September 2022, partners RMA, Telespazio, Rhea, M3 Systems, AIRobot and Unifly described how the system detected multiple different cyberattacks against drones, including IT attacks, GNSS jamming and spoofing, and other RF link attacks. 

The CyTEF system architecture contained several subsystems to generate 15 configurable attack scenarios, all controlled by a Central Orchestrator. The results of each test attack on 3 different types of drones were then analysed to assess resilience using the metrics of time and power until attack detection. Test reports indicated that while all 3 drones were affected by the attacks, dedicated drone communication protocols were more resilient to accidental and intentional interference than general purpose Wi-Fi, and multifrequency GNSS receivers were more resilient than single frequency receivers.

In future, the CyTEF test scenarios could be applied independently to verify the resilience of GNSS, air, space and ground transportation systems.

This project took place within the framework of NAVISP Element 3 which supports Member States’ national PNT strategies.

The slides of the Final Presentation can be found here.