Drone Security Testimony – 5-16-24

Today, there was a joint hearing by two subcommittees of the House Homeland Security Committee on “Unmanned Aerial Systems: An Examination of The Use of Drones in Emergency Response”. As I predicted on Monday, the prepared testimony from Michael Robbins from the Association for Uncrewed Vehicle Systems International (AUVSI), did briefly address cybersecurity issues associated with the use of uncrewed aircraft systems (I am glad to see that AUVSI is using the gender neutral terminology of ‘uncrewed’).

On page 12 of his testimony, Robbins provides four paragraphs under the heading of ‘Drone Security’ that addresses ways that the industry can address that issue. He briefly discusses the DOD’s Defense Innovation Unit’s Blue UAS program. Their web site notes that: “This effort also proves out a repeatable administrative onboarding process called “Blue UAS On-Ramp” designed to reduce barriers to entry for commercial sUAS and create a more permissive acquisition process for DoD customers.  More systems will be added to the roster soon.”

This is a DOD centric program and is not designed to serve civilian first responder needs. AUVSI has come up with voluntary industry certification program patterned after the DOD’s program, called the Green UAS program. I am not technically qualified to comment on their validation program, but it would seem that commercial UAS purchasers might want to consider something like Green UAS as a short-cut to validating ‘cybersecurity and NDAA supply chain compliance’ before making substantial UAS purchases.