Actual civilian UAS hardware and sensors information security problems

The use of unmanned vehicles, especially unmanned aerial systems (UAS) for a wide range of tasks of commercial and government organizations has intensified in recent years. Intentional or unintentional distortion of UAS data can potentially lead to dangerous man-made incidents with a threat to human life and health. Accordingly, there is an increasing need for ensuring the cybersecurity of such systems in general and protecting the data necessary for their correct functioning, in particular. Traditional security methods are not always suitable for sensors and hardware of unmanned vehicle systems due to a number of limitations and features of operation. With this article, the authors open a series of articles on UAS information security. The purpose of this article is to analyse attack vectors on sensors and their channels, as well as UAS hardware. In addition, the authors reviewed methods of protection against such attacks. In their work, the authors applied content analysis methods and experiments with real commercial unmanned aerial systems available to civilian users. As a result, the authors have developed a systematic list of attacks on sensors and hardware, presented in the form of tables in this article.