A Comprehensive Survey of Unmanned Aerial Systems' Risks and Mitigation Strategies

TL;DR

This survey provides a comprehensive overview of cybersecurity vulnerabilities in UAS, analyzing mitigation strategies, standards, and identifying research gaps to enhance the security of unmanned aerial systems.

Contribution

It offers an extensive analysis of UAS-specific and general cybersecurity mitigation strategies, along with standards and future research directions.

Findings

Identified key cybersecurity vulnerabilities in UAS deployment phases.

Reviewed existing mitigation strategies and standards applicable to UAS.

Highlighted critical research gaps for future cybersecurity improvements.

Abstract

In the last decade, the rapid growth of Unmanned Aircraft Systems (UAS) and Unmanned Aircraft Vehicles (UAV) in communication, defense, and transportation has increased. The application of UAS will continue to increase rapidly. This has led researchers to examine security vulnerabilities in various facets of UAS infrastructure and UAVs, which form a part of the UAS system to reinforce these critical systems. This survey summarizes the cybersecurity vulnerabilities in several phases of UAV deployment, the likelihood of each vulnerability's occurrence, the impact of attacks, and mitigation strategies that could be applied. We go beyond the state-of-the-art by taking a comprehensive approach to enhancing UAS security by performing an analysis of both UAS-specific and non-UAS-specific mitigation strategies that are applicable within the UAS domain to define the lessons learned. We also present relevant cybersecurity standards and their recommendations in the UAS context. Despite the significant literature in UAS security and the relevance of cyberphysical and networked systems security approaches from the past, which we identify in the survey, we find several critical research gaps that require further investigation. These form part of our discussions and recommendations for the future exploration by our research community.