MAVLink Protocol for Unmanned Aerial Vehicle: Vulnerabilities Analysis
Massimo Ficco, Raffaele Palmiero, Massimiliano Rak, Daniele Granata
Abstract
The number of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) is expected to increase significantly, due to the growing number of application areas, ranging from goods delivery systems to automated military applications. On the other hand, communication security between the UAV and its ground station is critical for completing the tasks without leaking sensitive information that could be used by malicious users to compromise the UAV’s mission. Nevertheless, several UAV families currently operate on unsecured command and control protocols. In particular, the Micro Aerial Vehicle (MAV) Link protocol is an open-source, point-to-point networking protocol used to carry telemetry and to command and control of a large number of UAVs. This protocol is designed with attention to availability and safety, but its security may have been overlooked. Therefore, this work performed a vulnerability analysis of the MAVLink protocol, in which several vulnerabilities have been discovered, and the respective methods used to compromise the communication between the UAV and the Ground Control Station have been presented.