A Survey of Security Challenges and Solutions for UAS Traffic Management (UTM) and small Unmanned Aerial Systems (sUAS)

TL;DR

This survey comprehensively reviews cyber-security vulnerabilities and defenses for small UAS within the UTM framework, focusing on resource constraints and system-oriented solutions to enhance safety and resilience.

Contribution

It provides a detailed, system-level taxonomy of threats and defenses for sUAS and UTM, addressing gaps in prior conceptual reviews and emphasizing practical mitigation strategies.

Findings

Classifies attack vectors across the cyber-physical stack

Evaluates defense mechanisms for scalability and effectiveness

Identifies open challenges for secure sUAS operations

Abstract

The rapid growth of small Unmanned Aerial Systems (sUAS) for civil and commercial missions has intensified concerns about their resilience to cyber-security threats. Operating within the emerging UAS Traffic Management (UTM) framework, these lightweight and highly networked platforms depend on secure communication, navigation, and surveillance (CNS) subsystems that are vulnerable to spoofing, jamming, hijacking, and data manipulation. While prior reviews of UAS security addressed these challenges at a conceptual level, a detailed, system-oriented analysis for resource-constrained sUAS remains lacking. This paper presents a comprehensive survey of cyber-security vulnerabilities and defenses tailored to the sUAS and UTM ecosystem. We organize existing research across the full cyber-physical stack, encompassing CNS, data links, sensing and perception, UTM cloud access, and software integrity layers, and classify attack vectors according to their technical targets and operational impacts. Correspondingly, we review defense mechanisms ranging from classical encryption and authentication to adaptive intrusion detection, lightweight cryptography, and secure firmware management. By mapping threats to mitigation strategies and evaluating their scalability and practical effectiveness, this work establishes a unified taxonomy and identifies open challenges for achieving safe, secure, and scalable sUAS operations within future UTM environments.