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in July of that year last year, a DJI Mavic 2 drone approached a Pennsylvania electrical substation. From its rotors hung two 4-foot nylon ropes, a thick copper wire with electrical tape attached to the ends. Identifiers, as well as an internal camera and memory card, were removed from the device in an attempt to detect ownership. The likely target, according to a joint security bulletin released by DHS, the FBI and the National Counter-Terrorism Center, was to “suspend operations by creating a short circuit.”
The drone crashed into the roof of an adjacent building before reaching its intended destination, damaging a rotor in the process. Its operator has not yet been found. According to the bulletin, the incident was first reported By the hand of ABC, Is the first case of a modified and manned aircraft system that is being used to “specifically target” U.S. energy infrastructure. It looks like it will be the last one, though.
In response to a request for comment, a DHS spokesman wrote that the agency “regularly shares information with federal, state, local, tribal and territorial officials to ensure the safety and security of all communities across the country.”
As for the potential of consumer drones to cause disaster, experts say he sounded the alarm for at least six years, saying that their wide availability and capabilities allow for bad actors. In 2018, a drone full of explosives made an appearance Attack on Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro. ISIS and other terrorist groups they have used Consumer-grade quadcopters for both surveillance and offensive operations.
But the events in Pennsylvania indicate a worrying increase in the use of drones. The U.S. has had incidents before: in 2015 a drone landed on White House grass, and the rise in drone sightings near airports and other critical sites has confused the FAA. Until now, these intrusions could have been eliminated unexpectedly. No more.
“I’m amazed that it took so long,” says Colin Clarke, director of policy and research for intelligence and security consulting for the Soufan Group. “If you have a few to find out how drones work and you can get into some raw explosives or just get into things, you can cause a lot of damage.”
It appears that the Pennsylvania drone operator has tried to take a less gross force approach. But it may have helped in an effort to hide the identity of the operator from not being connected to the intended purpose. With the removal of the camera, the joint bulletin says, they had to focus on line-of-sight navigation instead of taking a drone’s eye view. Although this effort failed, analysts in the report are clear that it is unlikely to be an aberration; if anything, they expect drone activity to “increase over the energy sector and other critical infrastructure facilities as the use of these systems continues to expand in the United States.”
This growing threat has not been met with proportional mitigation. Although the FAA places limits on where drones can be consumed by consumers, security experts and drone manufacturers have called for even more to be done. “As manufacturers of trucks or mobile phones, we have almost no ability to control what people do with drones,” says DJI spokesman Adam Lisberg. “DJI has long supported giving the authorities the legal capacity to take immediate action against drones that pose a clear threat, and we have long supported laws to punish any deliberate misuse of drones.”
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