Beware of the Rabbit Hole – A Digital Forensic Case Study of DIY Drones

Beware of the Rabbit Hole – A Digital Forensic Case Study of DIY Drones

연구 분야: Analysis

학회: Nordic Conference on Secure IT Systems

In the past years, Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs), commonly known as drones, have drawn attention for commercial, military and private use and thus emerged as a significant source of digital evidence. As of today both the research community and commercial software manufacturer focus on UAV mainstream brands such as DJI, which holds a market share of roughly of the civil market. On the other side Do-It-Yourself (DIY) drones are well suited for unconventional and illegal activities due to their technical capabilities and the legal limitations of commercial drones. However, the community currently lacks research of the examination of DIY drones. In this paper we address this research gap by conducting a comprehensive case study of a sample DIY drone. Our case study comprises both the assembly and the digital forensic perspective of DIY drones. Our systematic digital forensic examination within our case study follows the well-known process steps, i.e. preparation, acquisition, analysis. We provide insights into the peculiarities of each step and reveal that the identification of the hardware components and the corresponding examination is the most critical step.