A non-security geek way to question the Iran drone hack

So, over the past few days we’ve seen several articles about the recent/potential hacking of one of our military UNAV planes over Iran.  Naturally the security geek in me has been piqued to learn more details about how this was done.In the latest information, one of the Iranian engineers talks about jamming the command and control signals to the plane and forcing it to go into auto-pilot mode. Then hacking the plane at its weakest point, aka its GPS system. As a security minded person, I can make lots of arguments on the technical and security related challenges of these statements. However as a big radio frequency (RF) and remote control (RC) enthusiast, I  wanted to talk to a few points of this proposed attack and what may or may not be possible.
Command and Control Jamming– If  you are into RC planes and are big on electronics then finding out that there are kits out there already to build your own small scale UNAV system is nothing new. U-Nav.com (www.u-nav.com) has been in business for years and makes some of the best solutions for building solutions on the small scale.  Their latest kit includes using XBee based radios or modems to send command and control information to the UNAV system from the ground station.  As described in the Iranian attack, once this signal is jammed, the software goes into auto-pilot mode.  This auto-pilot mode usually instructs the aircraft to fly home or to a pre-determined GPS waypoint and hover (fly in circles) around the waypoint until the command and control connection are re-established or perform a controlled crash (typically a flat spin) once power has been depleted to the craft.

Reading up on the latest Info-warfare solutions that we theorize that Iran has at their disposal, it looks as if they have the proper surface-to-air platforms to use to perform this attack. Just keep in mind that jamming most RF signals is entirely possible, just by broadcasting “noise” on the same set of frequencies that the RF receiver is trying to listen in on.

GPS Jamming – GPS jamming is extremely easy.  Heck you can now find complete kits on the Internet to perform just about any jamming you need.  Worried about privacy issues, install a jammer. Worried that law enforcement has installed a GPS or Lo-jack tracker on your car, install a jammer. Yep, its that easy.

Note – Just remember that it is illegal for you to build or use one in the US (as well as many other countries).

Waypoint Hacking – This is the most interesting point of the Iranian hack. According to some of the articles, Iran claims to have altered the GPS signal going to the UNAV system and giving the plane enough information to land safely at a location in Iran.  What is impressive here are the technical challenges to perform this hack:

  • Pushing updated data to the craft – The part I struggle with the most, is the claim that a ground-based tracking station/platform was used to performed this attack.  As I stated, jamming is rather easy.  But jamming while also updating coordinates is complex… especially when doing this to a craft that is above your elevation, fling at 200+ MPH, and you are overriding a signal coming from a satellite that is located above both you and the target. I’d love to hear from any military types on this capability.  But as stated, its one heck of a hurdle to overcome.
  • Knowing the Waypoint to Spoof/Alter – To have the plane land at a location of your choosing assumes you know where its original destination was located at to begin with.  Since Iran stated they analyzed several previously crashed aircraft, I’ll have to assume they were able to gather this information through these or more traditional information gathering efforts..aka – everyone in the region knows all the planes come from 1 or 2 bases.
  • Overriding The Waypoint – The other part I struggle with in the articles is the statement that Iran chose where to land the plane. This basically assumes that they tricked the plane into thinking it was over Afghanistan instead of Iran and was to land at its pre-determined waypoint.  All jokes aside about both places being mostly desert, still the locations are not identical.  To do this part of the attack, you have to overide not only the physical location but also important factors such as the topology of the landing site… aka altitude, approach angle, and wind direction.

It is these last three challenges that make me question the validity of the “hack” that took place, at least as described so far.  But since I know the challenges, I’m also eager to hear on the techniques and solutions to overcome these hurdles. As always, I’ll wait to hear more before giving a final verdict, but just wanted to open up a discussion on the basic hurdles that needed to be overcome for this attack to work.

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