More and more drones are likely to take flight in the US in the coming years, but it's not all hobbyists out for an afternoon flying session. Eventually, delivery drones will compete for airspace with UAVs providing Internet service, thwarting piracy, or assisting law enforcement.
That could make for crowded, and potentially dangerous skies, but not simply because one could drop from the sky and land on your head. It's fertile ground for hackers who might redirect drones or use them as an access point for much larger schemes.
As a result, AT&T is joining NASA's effort to develop a traffic management system for drones. Details are scant, but a "key element" of their work will be researching "the potential impact of cybersecurity threats."
Web-connected drones are part of the Internet of Things (IoT), weakness in which were exploited recently to take a major DNS provider offline. The Mirai botnet, which scours the Web for poorly protected IoT-connected devices and enlists them to overwhelm a target with online traffic, latched onto hacked DVRs and IT cameras made by Hangzhou Xiongmai Technology to take down Dyn. Conceivably, the same could be accomplished with insecure drones.
In a November 2015 fact sheet, NASA said "a safety system" was needed to also make sure drones don't "collide with buildings, larger aircraft, or one another.
"Building on its legacy of work in air traffic management for crewed aircraft, NASA is researching prototype technologies such as airspace design, dynamic geofencing, congestion management and terrain avoidance for a UAS Traffic Management (UTM) system that could develop airspace integration requirements for enabling safe, efficient low-altitude operations."
At the time, it identified a number of high-tech partners, including Amazon, Google, and Verizon. Now, AT&T is apparently joining those ranks.
AT&T last week, meanwhile, implemented a national drone program, which connects the UAVs to its LTE network to capture data on cell towers and network performance at venues across the country. That information is fed back to AT&T, and can be used to make necessary changes in real time. In the future, AT&T envisions using so-called "Flying Cell on Wings" to provide LTE coverage at large events or in disaster-stricken areas impassable by vehicles.