Hackers Can Use AR.Drone To Create An Airborne Botnet Controller
You probably remember the AR.Drone - the quadricopter by Parrot that can be controlled by iPhone, iPad or iPod Touch, which brought augmented reality gaming to the iPhone.
Sven Dietrich, an assistant professor in computer science and two of his students at the Stevens Institute of Technology have demonstrated how such drones could be used by attackers to create an airborne botnet controller.
Dietrich is calling the modified quadricopter with a Linux computer, 3G card, a GPS unit and two Wi-Fi cards - SkyNET Drone.
Gizmodo explains how it works:
Controlled by a botmaster using 3G, the drone or group of drones fly over any urban area looking for Wi-FI networks. As they find them, they automatically try to break in. Once they get inside the network, it searches for personal computers that can be compromised. Any computer that falls to the attack gets turned into a zombie without the user ever knowing it.
After the infection process, the hackers can easily control the zombies remotely through the Wi-Fi drone-to-host connection. The zombies can be used to perform any attack through their internet connections, receiving commands from SkyNET.
Since the botnets are controlled via the drone rather than an internet connection, it becomes difficult to track them down.
Sounds pretty scary, especially when you consider that it can be built for less than $600.
