UK Software to Shield Ukrainian Drones from Cyber Threats
Drones in Ukraine are now under fire – not from traditional weapons, but from sneaky malware attacks. British tech firm Periphery, known for their military-grade threat management software for the Internet of Things gadgets, is coming to the rescue.
Drone software is a constant work in progress. The firmware 1001, which powers DJI quadcopters in battlefields, has gone through over 40 updates in just two years. Each update could potentially be a Trojan horse, sneaking in dangerous malware with no defense. But fear not, as Periphery has the antidote.
Sabotage 101
Toby Wilmington, the co-founder and CEO of Periphery, explains their solution: a lightweight, military-grade software agent that can be embedded before or after production. This nifty tech keeps an eye on all nasty business happening within the drone and communicates with central servers for instant updates on threats.
"Our technology uses our proprietary machine learning models to sniff out suspicious or malicious activity within the device," shares Wilmington.
Think of it like a security guard for your drone – it knows what's 'normal' and raises the alarm if it spots anything fishy.
Malware Mischief
Malware can ground your drone hard or make it behave like a puppet, dancing to the attacker's tune. And as we learned in World War II, it can even have hidden messages, like the 11 unexploded shells found in the gas tank of an American B-17 bomber – a kind gesture from a Czech worker.
However, the risks aren't just about the drone itself: hackers could infect entire networks through them, creating chaos and destruction on a larger scale.
Remember the notorious SolarWinds hack in 2019-20, where compromised security software served as a gateway for hacking corporate databases? Thousands of companies and government organizations were affected, with the breach going undetected for over a year.
Periphery's technology can catch the malware before it wreaks havoc. An upcoming feature called 'Respond' will give drones the power to fight back against threats in real-time.
If a drone falls into enemy hands, Periphery's software can keep secure information safe and, in theory, even load it with malware to counterattack the enemy. But for now, Periphery's mission is purely defensive.
The Threat within the Threat
But how does malware sneak into drones in the first place? It could be present right from the manufacturing stage. When an opponent gets their grubby hands on a downed or captured drone, they thoroughly inspect its parts for weaknesses. And since components like Russian Shahed drones' chips come from US and Asian suppliers, they become prime targets for sabotage.
Suppliers might also be complicit in the scheme. The Pentagon has banned the usage of Chinese-made DJI drones by any US forces due to fears of data espionage.
An attack could also happen during regular firmware updates, a scenario that might already have played out in Ukraine.
In February 2024, the Ukrainian hacker group IT Army of Ukraine claimed to have infiltrated the servers controlling DJI drone updates and caused significant chaos. While this only slowed down Russia's ability to update their drones, a future assault could implant malware into the drones, with devastating consequences for around 200,000 Russian DJI quadcopters.
Defending Our IoT World
Drones aren't Periphery's only concern. Despite focusing on drones due to their growing importance in battlefields, Periphery sees a much wider threat landscape on the horizon.
"By 2030, there will be an estimated 30 billion IoT devices," says Wilmington. "The cyber-threat landscape is evolving rapidly, and we've already seen a staggering 400% increase in malware attacks against IoT devices."
As the number of IoT devices soars, more of them will have military significance or be connected to critical infrastructure. In such a scenario, securing these devices becomes paramount to prevent a single cyber-attack from disabling entire forces at once.
Periphery might just be Ukraine's knight in shining armor, but their technology could be the shield our entire IoT world needs in the face of increasing cyber threats.
- The malware responsible for the cyber attacks on drones in Ukraine could potentially be sneaked in through updates to the firmware, such as the DJI quadcopter's firmware 1001.
- Periphery's technology, a lightweight, military-grade software agent, can be embedded in drone software, acting as a security guard that monitors suspicious activity and communicates with central servers for instant updates on threats.
- In a future cyber war, Periphery's technology could defend against malware that might ground drones or compromise entire networks, similar to the notorious SolarWinds hack in 2019-20.
