The University of Virginia and Georgia Tech Research Institute have jointly demonstrated a cyber defense system for unmanned aerial vehicles in live flight scenarios.The system-aware cybersecurity concept and secure sentinel technology went through simulated ground-based cyber-attacks, insiderinitiated attacks and supply chain interdictions during the five-day demonstration, UVA said Monday.
“Our research focuses on providing additional security by employing an on-board secure monitoring subsystem to detect illogical behaviors relative to the expected profile of a system’s performance,†said Barry Horowitz, project leader and professor of systems and information engineering at UVA.
“Detections can serve to initiate automated recovery actions and to alert operators of the attack,” he added.
The in-flight evaluation was designed to test the technology’s countermeasure system to bolster the drone’s cyber infrastructure under attack conditions.
Stevens Institute, a university-affiliated research center sponsored by the Defense Department, developed the secure sentinel technology.
