The hostile use of civilian drones in the UK, and what to do about it

With civilian drones surging, it’s only a matter of time until one is used as a weapon.

Glyn Moody – Jan 12, 2016 12:51 pm | 8

Remote Control, a project hosted by Oxford Research Group, has issued a report exploring the designs and capabilities of over 200 current and upcoming unmanned aerial, ground, and marine drones in order to understand the threats these platforms pose to potential targets. The report, entitled “Hostile drones: the hostile use of drones by non-state actors against British targets,” also outlines the strategies available to mitigate the threats.

The report notes that: “There are particular concerns that drones will be used as simple, affordable and effective airborne Improvised Explosive Devices.” It says that “Governments are also concerned by the decentralisation and democratisation of intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR) capabilities made possible by the widespread availability of drones,” but points out that activists working to hold governments and corporations to account regard them as powerful new tools for that reason.

The researchers provide a useful run-down of the main incidents involving the use of drones by non-state actors. These include “lone wolfs,” terrorist organisations, insurgent groups, organised crime groups, activists and corporations. One interesting example of how corporations can use drones is for crowd control against strikers or demonstrators: “An example of such a drone is the Desert Wolf Skunk, which is equipped with four high-capacity paint ball barrels that can fire a variety of ammunition, including pepper spray balls and plastic balls. The drones can be flown in formation by a single operator.”

The final part of the report explores ways in which the threats from the use of drones by these various groups can be mitigated, and says that the best strategy is “to employ a hierarchy of countermeasures encompassing regulatory countermeasures, passive countermeasures and active countermeasures.”

Regulatory countermeasures include imposing identification requirements when buying a drone, and civil aviation rules with harsh penalties for flying near critical infrastructure. Another interesting option is to require that no-fly zones are built in to firmware. This is the drone equivalent of “I’m sorry, Dave. I’m afraid I can’t do that.” According to the report, the Chinese drone manufacturer DJI has already adopted this technique: “The firmware maintains several No Fly Zones based on the GPS coordinates of the pilot’s location. There are around 350 No Fly Zones worldwide.”

Passive countermeasures include early warning systems: “DroneShield is developing a system that contains a database of common acoustic signatures unique to drones. If a drone is detected, DroneShield instantly alerts security officers via text message, email or through an existing alarm system.” Another technique is signal jamming, whereby popular drone control frequencies can be blocked using a radio frequency jammer. More innovative is the use of drone malware: in January 2015 “a security researcher claimed to have developed the world’s first drone malware: Maldrone. The Python script is loaded to the drone over a local Wi-Fi network and can turn off the drone’s autopilot system and take control remotely.”

Finally, there are active countermeasures—basically, blasting the drone out of the sky using things like rockets or bullets. As the report points out, these “kinetic” systems bring with them a risk of collateral damage to nearby civilians: “Missiles and rockets fired at UAVs could cause catastrophic damage if they miss their target.” This has led to some alternatives: “Less risky commercial options include non-lethal projectile weapons that fire blunt force rounds, such as bean bags or rubber bullets, or small portable net guns that can ensnare drones.”

A Chinese consortium has developed a rather more high-tech solution: a weapon system that can “shoot down light drones at low altitude using a 10 kilowatt high energy laser. It has a 1.2-mile range and is effective against aircraft travelling at up to 112 mph and at a maximum altitude of 500 metres. It can destroy the drone within five seconds of locating its target.” Last week we covered another intriguing solution: in Tokyo, police are scrambling larger drones with nets to catch smaller drones.

In its conclusions, the Remote Control group recommends a rather interventionist approach: “Policymakers should pass stricter regulations limiting the capabilities of commercially available drones in the key specifications affecting hostile drone operations, particularly payload capacity.” It also wants the UK government to “support the research and development of innovative less-lethal anti-drone systems, such as directional radio frequency jammers, lasers and malware, and set out clear guidelines for the police and military use of kinetic weapons against hostile drones as a last line of defence.”

Those recommendations seem rather over the top, given that there is no evidence of any serious threat from drone technology yet. However, it does no harm to start thinking about realistic countermeasures, not least because some 200,000 civilian-use drones are being sold worldwide each month, according to the report. With that number entering circulation, it can only be a matter of time before somebody in the UK tries to do something “hostile” with one.