On Securing Drones in the Open

Abstract Book of the 10th International Conference on Advanced Research in Management, Business and Finance

Year: 2026

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On Securing Drones in the Open

Selwyn Piramuthu

ABSTRACT:

While drones sometimes operate within a secure environment such as inside a warehouse, this is often not the case when the drones are required to operate in the open such as when drones are used for last mile delivery. Securing drones from adversaries while navigating in the open is of paramount importance to protect the drones and their payload from getting into the wrong hands. Securing could take several forms that include physical drones and their payload as well as their communications. Both physical security and communication security have their own set of challenges. We study communication security. Drones communicate with other entities continually as they operate. Ideally, such communication occurs with trusted parties such as their operators. Communication messages are often encrypted to prevent revealing their content to unintended recipients or adversaries. However, given the constraints under which drones operate such as their computational capability, mobility, and communication bandwidth, the frequency, density, and complexity of the encrypted messages need to be kept under bounds to ensure that communication occurs as intended. Mutual authentication is necessary before any such communication with a drone. Mutual authentication is where both the parties authenticate each other to ensure that they are whom they claim to be. We develop and evaluate a secure mutual authentication protocol for this purpose.

Keywords: Cryptography; Drone; Outside; Privacy; Security