How Do You Evaluate Your Real Risk from Rogue Drones? DL Exclusive from Drone Detection Experts AeroDefense

As commercial drone use scales around the world, the threat from rogue operators utilizing readily available hardware for criminal purposes also increases.  Companies and agencies from all sectors are evaluating their risk: and deciding on the appropriate response.  Current regulations around the authorized use of counter drone technology may additionally complicate the situation.

DRONELIFE presents this guest post by Linda Ziemba, Founder and CEO of drone detection technology provider AeroDefense. In this piece, Linda lays out seven steps to accurately assessing your risk of drone incursions – and deciding how much to invest in drone detection technology. DRONELIFE neither accepts nor makes payment for guest posts.  

Seven Steps to Match Drone Detection Investment to Threat Level

by Linda Ziemba, Founder and CEO of AeroDefense

The wars in Ukraine and Israel show the world how small, inexpensive quadcopters can be used effectively as weapons. Critical infrastructure providers must reconsider whether their traditional two-dimensional ground-based security systems should expand to include airspace security. The lack of understanding from some executives about drone threats makes it difficult for security managers to obtain budgets for technology solutions to prevent and minimize drone-related disruptions. This article suggests an approach to quantify risks and costs with some free tools to help you match your drone detection technology investment to your threat level.

Assess Your Drone Threat Risk

Before you invest in drone detection technology, it’s important to assess the risk to assets you must protect compared to the level of drone activity sighted at your property or at others like yours.

If your staff does not report drone sightings, it doesn’t mean you don’t have an issue. The lack of sightings may mean you don’t have an issue or it may just mean that no one saw the drones. On the other hand if your location falls within an hour of an airport, staff may confuse drones with planes or helicopters and overestimate your issue.

In one case you may under-invest in drone detection technology to protect your property and the other you may seriously over-invest. Neither is good.

Pilots who may cause intentional or unintentional harm fall into three categories:

●  Clueless: completely uninformed about safety and regulations

●  Careless: informed but reckless

●  Criminal: intent to harm

Regardless of the pilot intent, you want to estimate your risk exposure to an aerial incursion over your Areas of Interest (AOI). Risk exposure means different things to organizations in different industries and geographies with varying financial impacts. Key inputs at this stage include the damage that can occur, the possibility and probability of damage and the cost of response with no system in place.

Put your risk exposure into a format that is easy to explain as you discuss this new threat with other team members and leadership. Quantify the loss risk but also the response cost when drones are seen over properties. In some cases, locations are put on lockdown and all buildings are searched which carries a cost even when no actual damage occurs. A secure data center may send staff to search every building’s rooftop to ensure no cyber-threat technology was deployed.

Drones can be used as a primary tool in a nefarious incident or as a planning and support tool. Some known incidents in various situations include:

●  Explosives delivery in Ukraine and Israel wars in 2023 and other Middle Eastern conflicts

●  Ohio State v Maryland NCAA football game disruption 2023

●  Propaganda delivery at two NFL stadiums in 2017

●  Intellectual property loss through drone Lidar mapping a chemical facility which was quickly replicated in China

●  Law enforcement surveillance in support of non-drone related criminal activities

●  Attempted power substation sabotage via a copper-wire equipped drone to short-circuit equipment at a Pennsylvania substation in 2021

●  Reconnaissance to determine ground-based security weaknesses for future attack

Tabletop exercises with your security staff, local law enforcement, and emergency management personnel can help you identify and quantify risks as well as clearly define your desired drone threat response tactics.

AeroDefense offers this free Drone Threat Risk Assessment Tool which can help.

Identify Potential Drone Detection and Mitigation Options

4. Determine Your Organization’s Authority to Mitigate and Use Counter UAS (CUAS) Equipment

The FAA Reauthorization Act of 2018 granted four Federal Agencies the ability to apply for Federal law waivers to use drone detection technology that reads drone/controller communication content and to use drone mitigation technology. As of the writing of this article, the authorities set to expire on September 30th, 2023 were first extended to March 9th, 2024 and then extended again to May 11th, 2024.

It may be a good idea to confirm any technology you evaluate can be operated without such waivers in case the waivers are not extended and because the waiver application process is a bit laborious.

If you are one of the four agencies or any additional agency granted the mitigation authority, check with your Risk Mitigation Team to confirm they will accept the public safety and property damage risk of your use of mitigation technology.

Spectrum sensing detection technology offers an alternative detection solution that does not require a waiver to operate. If you are not an agency granted the waiver authority, you may want to confirm with vendors they can produce some sort of independent, preferably government 3rd party, validation that no waiver or authorization is required to operate their equipment so you avoid legal issues and potential equipment confiscation.

In the last Congress, over a dozen bills were proposed for various and sometimes conflicting capabilities.

5. Obtain vendor recommendations, quotes and commitments for each scenario

Both drone and drone detection technology change at an extremely rapid rate. Government regulations don’t change quickly but remain in an uncertain state and may affect vendor products. The combination of technology and regulatory change require you to collaborate with vendors on their current product support and new product capability development projects when you are ready to launch your initiative.

Collect quotes for each of your various locations or threat scenarios so you can compare protection and prevention costs to the agreed-upon risk.

6. Seek investment protection

Investment protection covers multiple facets. The first, most basic component is whether drone detection sensors purchased a few years ago can work with a vendor’s most current products. Buying drone detection as a service somewhat mitigates the investment protection issue as long as your coverage area remains static or you do not have the distraction and disruption to replace hardware. If you want to own your own hardware, investment protection represents a key consideration.

Your staff training on the system’s User Interface (UI) and reporting capability is another form of investment protection. It goes without saying that the UI should be as intuitive and simple as possible, but worth mentioning that the UI should be consistent across a single vendor’s offerings and also have the ability to integrate multiple sensor types.

It is a good idea to talk with long-term customers to validate vendor claims and to check the vendor’s customer service reputation.

Secure Drone Detection Budget

Now, you must convince leadership to invest funds to prevent drone incursion damage.

The information compiled during your process will help you feel confident you will not overspend to adequately protect or underspend and under protect your facilities.

See our blog article titled “Drone Detection/Counter-UAS Terms and Definitions” which might help set a foundational understanding.

7. Develop Budget Request Based on ROI and Risk Exposure

While it is possible lightning could strike you on your morning walk around the block, seriously injuring or killing you, it is highly unlikely. Lightning strikes, then, are not a threat you need to actively invest significant time and money to prevent, as simple surge protectors may be adequate.

Consider the probability and potential outcome information you developed for each location earlier in the process and compare it to the drone detection options you collected.

The free drone threat risk assessment tool mentioned above can help you present your research, options and recommendations to ensure you have right-sized your drone detection plans and to help you communicate quantifiable terms effectively with leadership.

For example, the assumptions below show if the drone threat risk grows slowly at 10% annually, it is almost three years before you achieve system payback. However, if the drone threat continues at a pace closer to 50% the system pays back in around nine months.

Once you gain your executive input to the risk costs and potential – the numbers will guide you to a best-fit solution.

Drone incidents or intentional attacks with commercial off-the-shelf drones are quite inexpensive and adaptable, so defending against this threat must be similarly cost-effective and agile. We hope the thoughts and tools in this article help you protect your facilities appropriately

Linda Ziemba, Founder and CEO of AeroDefense, has experience that spans internet security, telecommunications, and entrepreneurship at companies including Websense, Secure Computing, AT&T and Lucent Technologies. Prior to founding AeroDefense in 2015, Linda Ziemba served as a key executive for LiveLOOK, a collaboration software company. Ms. Ziemba’s leadership across sales, marketing, and general operations resulted in numerous contracts with global financial services, telecommunications and computer firms, and ultimately acquisition by Oracle in 2014.

AeroDefense provides a full suite of passive Radio-Frequency (RF) based drone detection service layers to alert when drones and their controllers enter a protected airspace. Ms. Ziemba’s Internet security experience coupled with her communications engineering background enabled her to imagine the concept, build, and lead a team that developed the only drone detection system to receive a Department of Homeland Security SAFETY Act designation.