Is it possible to hijack a quadcopter?
Like an attacker would jam the controller's signals and send his/her own signal to controll the drone. If so, what would be the technical steps?
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2$\begingroup$ Welcome to Drones SE! As your question stands, it likely isn't suited to this site. There's the issue of legality. Interfering with any drones, whether it be physically damaging the drone or jamming the signal, can result in unwanted legal issues. According to the Communications Act of 1934, interfering with radio transmissions (such as the ones controlling the drone) is unlawful. $\endgroup$– Jacob B ♦Commented Apr 16, 2021 at 20:03
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1$\begingroup$ There is almost certainly comparable legislation in effect for other countries besides the USA as well. $\endgroup$– ifconfig ♦Commented Apr 16, 2021 at 20:54
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2$\begingroup$ I mean, technically it is certainly possible. There have been several news headlines over the years about law enforcement developing and testing devices to"swat" drones out of the sky with radio jammers, but these are mega illegal to use by the public. We can't morally (or I think legally) endorse or document how to make them. $\endgroup$– ifconfig ♦Commented Apr 17, 2021 at 5:47
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5 Answers
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Yes, you look up the communication protocol and the frequency that it's using. If it's unencrypted you can pretty readily hijack it assuming you can over power the transmitter. If it's running off GPS you need to GPS spoof it(not sure how to do this but it's possible).
If it's encrypted you probably will only be able to crash it.
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$\begingroup$ Most drones will not be using a single frequency. You'd also need to work out the frequency hopping pattern, and copy that. If it's running from GPS, there's probably a command to switch it back to manual control. OTOH GPS spoofing would work even if you can't crack the encryption. $\endgroup$ Commented Jun 21, 2021 at 8:02
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it very much depends on the protocol used to communicate, for a typical DJI drone as example it's a hard NO, well nothing is impossible, but it will be very hard to do it in the few minutes of flight time.
there are some weaker protocols out there that would technically make this easier, but again you first need to find the drone with active communication (eg it's armed and connected) intercept the communication and then spoof the original controller, this is pretty difficult to accomplish in the little time you have until the drone lands because the battery is empty.
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Могу описать процесс угона квадрокоптера для приемника ELRS. Протокол передачи elrs использует ППРЧ сигнала, а для синхронизации перестройки на приемнике и передатчике он требует бинд-фразу. Бинд фраза при ее установке увеличивается до 6 символов. Т.е. если ваша бинд фраза состоит из 4х символов, то к ней добавляются еще 2 первых символа вашей бинд фразы в конец. Затем бинд фраза хэшируется в MD5 хэш и первые 6 символов применяются при генерации случайных частот после генерации из них UID. Т.к. применяются лишь 6 символов генерации хеша MD5, то существует всего 2^20 вариантов возможных UID из всех возможных бинд фраз. Соотвественно, существует всего 2^20 вариантов последовательностей генерации случайных частот. В связи с этим вы можете слушать частоты и регестрировать их последовательности и сопоставлять с заранее сгенерированными последовательностями перескока частоты. За минуту такого приема (при помощи того же SDR приемника) при скорости передачи пакетов в 250 Гц вы сузите круг поиска до единиц возможных бинд фраз. Сложнее всего аппаратная часть. В остальном все просто. ППРЧ не считается шифрованием и соответственно защитой от взлома тоже.
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$\begingroup$ Welcome to D&MA:SE. Please post your answer in English. $\endgroup$ Commented May 23 at 7:47
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I have flown quadcopter drones for over 8 years, ranging from basic toy drones priced at 100 to much more advanced professional aerial mapping and video production platforms, costing well over 25,000. Toy drones are susceptible to signal interference of all kinds, due to their weak communication systems, making them easy targets for hijacking. They communicate between drone and control through the Bluetooth signal from your smart phone and only have a range of 1,000 to 2,000 feet, before the signal is too weak to even control the drone. However, you would need to spend more money on the equipment needed to hijack one of these than they even cost, so pointless. In contrast, professional drones feature much more advanced technology like frequency hopping, encryption, third party FAA restricted zones, as well as use a much more robust controller with a dramatically more powerful radio frequency connection and can have a range of 10 miles or more. However, that distance is prohibitive due to time limits on battery power which is about 30-60 minutes. Depending on wind, temperature, camera equipment used, speed of flight, altitude, etc. making them highly secure and extremely expensive investments. Interfering with the communications of such advanced drones requires expertise and in-depth knowledge of multiple different systems, not to mention that these high-level drones cost more than most nice cars. Therefore, attempting to interfere with these systems without the necessary skills and understanding is not only futile, but without the even more advanced skillset to achieve any of this undetected by law enforcement or the drone's owner, you would only accomplish causing yourself problems. I would not want to be the person attempting to do this to one of my 10,000 investments. I can guarantee you I would be standing behind you before you are ever able to land my drone. Then there are the Military Grade Unmanned Weapons Platforms and let's just say, not a snowballs chance in hell of interfering with one of those, besides the charge of Treason against the United States of America, that would accompany it.
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Is it possible to hijack a quadcopter?
A)Yes
B)No
If so, what would be the technical steps?
Find a flying drone. Intercept the communication. If encrypted go and get a quantum computer before they switch to quantum encryption.
I will not detail the step-by-step process to hijack a quadcopter. It's already on the internet. If you didn't find it yet, you didn't ask yourself the right questions.
