Analysis on security-related concerns of unmanned aerial vehicle: attacks, limitations, and recommendations

Over time, the use of UAVs (unmanned aerial vehicles)/drones has increased across several civil and military application domains. Such domains include real-time monitoring, remote sensing, wireless coverage in disaster areas, search and rescue, product delivery, surveillance, security, agriculture, civil infrastructure inspection, and the like. This rapid growth is opening doors to numerous opportunities and conveniences in everyday life. On the other hand, security and privacy concerns for unmanned aerial vehicles/drones are progressively increasing. With limited standardization and regulation of unmanned aerial vehicles/drones, security and privacy concerns are growing. This paper presents a brief analysis of unmanned aerial vehicle's/drones security and privacy-related concerns. The paper also presents countermeasures and recommendations to address such concerns. While laying out a brief survey of unmanned aerial vehicles/drones, the paper also provides readers with up-to-date information on existing regulations, classification, architecture, and communication methods. It also discusses application areas, vulnerabilities, existing countermeasures against different attacks, and related limitations. In the end, the paper concludes with a discussion on open research areas and recommendations on how the security and privacy of unmanned aerial vehicles can be improved.