Security Assessment of Drone Teams and Swarms Using an Extended SecRAM Methodology

The growing interest and utilization of drones in both civilian and military contexts has resulted in the deployment of this object in teams and swarms for mission-critical operations. It is evident that standalone drones represent highly exposed cyber-physical systems (CPSs). Furthermore, when they cooperate, they create complex networked CPSs, which could present a multitude of potential attack vectors and points of exploitation. In this study, we present a security risk assessment of drone teams and swarms using an enhanced version of the SESAR Security Risk Assessment Methodology (SecRAM). The study improves SecRAM by integrating model-based notation and including findings from a literature review focused on a particular operational scenario, which involves a network of multiple drones overseen by a mobile edge server using a sandwich methodology.