Intel Officials Say Cities Not Ready for Hostile Drones

This issue is becoming “real” as a result of all of the UAS (Unmanned Aircraft Systems AKA drones) sightings on the east coast of the United States in the last several months. While not completely a cybersecurity issue, the methods for tracking and controlling drones is definitely going to include cyber.

Many people believe the government knows more than it is telling. A bill in the Senate that would have allowed DHS to surveil. track, control and destroy hostile drones carrying, say, explosives or chemical weapons, was blocked by Senator Rand Paul as “an intrusion of privacy”. I guess the Senator doesn’t think that, say, dispersing a chemical agent over a large gathering like a stadium is not a problem.

In a joint statement, DHS, FBI, FAA and DoD said they examined more than 5,000 reported drone sightings and claim that the sightings are a combination of lawful commercial drones, hobbyist drones, law enforcement drones as well as manned fixed wing aircraft, helicopters and stars mistakenly reported as drones. They did say that Congress should enact new legislation.

The President-elect said that the drones are not the enemy and the government and military “know what is happening” but are keeping the public in “suspense”. I assume that means in January he will let us know what is happening. But he also said he canceled a trip to his golf course in New Jersey, where they have been many drone sightings.

We are seeing an impact on airport operations from these drones. Stewart Airport in suburban Orange County New York (a short drive from Manhattan) had to shut down operations for a short time recently due to drone sightings.

And of course, there is the hysteria aspect.

Senator Andy Kim posted several videos on Twitter and described them as doing maneuvers that are uncharacteristic of planes – and then had to admit later that they were almost certainly planes.

Connecticut state Senator Tony Hwang said that the state should be ready to shoot them down – even though doing that, even by local law enforcement – is a felony.

But here is the problem. Lets assume that this year’s sightings are all either incorrect or benign. I can guarantee you that folks with nefarious intentions are thinking “hmmm, how could I put a malicious payload on a hobbyist drone and detonate it at …” – see below.

A DHS memo from August recently leaked said that state and local authorities observe “nefarious” and “noncompliant” flights but still lack the authority to intervene.

The fed’s memo says that violent extremists are searching for ways to modify commercial drones to ferry dangerous payloads, including explosives, conductive materials (I assume to short out high voltage power lines) and chemicals, with major advances coming out of the war in Ukraine.

The bottom line is that even if these drones are not dangerous, if someone decided to test our response, it would be bad guys 100, good guys 0, more than likely.

Hopefully the folks that are about to take over Washington in a couple of weeks have a plan.

Stay tuned.