Investigating Drone Data Recovery beyond the Obvious Using Digital Forensics

Smit Chandrakant Nayak, Bharath K. Samanthula, Vaibhavi Tiwari

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceedingConference contributionpeer-review

Abstract

The rapid advancement of drone technology has opened up new opportunities across a wide range of sectors, including agriculture, surveillance, and delivery services. Specifically, the accessibility and affordability of drones suggest a surge in their prevalence in the coming years. Nonetheless, this growth opened new doors for bad actors to use drones for nefarious activities; thereby, raising safety and security concerns attributed to the unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs). In this paper, we focus on systematically investigating the data recovery mechanisms for confiscated drones. First, we discuss the potential security threats associated with the drones and different detection methods to spot drones. Then, we propose a structured data recovery framework to effectively retrieve crucial data from a malicious drone. In particular, we analyze the popular DJI Mini 2 SE drone and show how our proposed framework can facilitate forensic investigators to uncover crucial data beyond the drone's metadata. Our experiments show that investigators can effectively recover sensitive historical data that was even deleted from the drone's external secure digital (SD) card.

Original languageEnglish
Title of host publication2023 IEEE 14th Annual Ubiquitous Computing, Electronics and Mobile Communication Conference, UEMCON 2023
EditorsSatyajit Chakrabarti, Rajashree Paul
PublisherInstitute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers Inc.
Pages254-260
Number of pages7
ISBN (Electronic)9798350304138
DOIs
StatePublished - 2023
Event14th IEEE Annual Ubiquitous Computing, Electronics and Mobile Communication Conference, UEMCON 2023 - New York, United States
Duration: 12 Oct 202314 Oct 2023

Publication series

Name2023 IEEE 14th Annual Ubiquitous Computing, Electronics and Mobile Communication Conference, UEMCON 2023

Conference

Conference14th IEEE Annual Ubiquitous Computing, Electronics and Mobile Communication Conference, UEMCON 2023
Country/TerritoryUnited States
CityNew York
Period12/10/2314/10/23

Keywords

  • Attacks
  • Data Recovery
  • Data Security
  • Digital Forensics
  • Drone
  • SD cards

Fingerprint

Dive into the research topics of 'Investigating Drone Data Recovery beyond the Obvious Using Digital Forensics'. Together they form a unique fingerprint.

Cite this