This DIY Device Lets You Hijack Drones In Mid-Air

A tutorial shows how a Parrot drone can be hacked over unprotected Wi-Fi
Parrot AR Drone 2.0 In Flight
Nicolas Halftermeyer, via Wikimedia Commons CC BY-SA 3.0

Cheap consumer drones are really just little computers on wings. It makes sense, then, that all it takes to disable one is another cheap computer, a wi-fi connection, and some technical know-how. Brent Chapman, an Army Cyber Warfare officer, already made a tool that remotely shuts off Parrot drones. Now, at Make, he’s made a full tutorial for people to make their own anti-drone kit.

To follow Chapman’s instructions, a person will need a Parrot AR Quadcopter 2.0, which runs about $200 new and can be found online and used for less. Then they’ll need a Raspberry Pi computer, which start at around $25.

Here’s how it works, from Chapman:

The step-by-step guide seems pretty intuitive, with both the mechanical assembly and coding spelled out. The vulnerability, it seems, would be easy for dronemakers Parrot to correct, if they so desired: simply add encryption or authorization to the system.

 

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Kelsey D. Atherton Avatar

Kelsey D. Atherton

Contributor, Tech

Kelsey D. Atherton is a military technology journalist who has contributed to Popular Science since 2013. He covers uncrewed robotics and other drones, communications systems, the nuclear enterprise, and the technologies that go into planning, waging, and mitigating war.