A Comprehensive Survey and Taxonomy of Cybersecurity Challenges and Proactive Measures for IoD

Abstract

The use of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) in various domains is continuously increasing. The benefits offered by UAVs enable the facilitation of functions or execution of tasks, such as search and rescue, which would otherwise be challenging or financially restrictive. Furthermore, UAVs are important for the military domain being considered as efficient weapons. Therefore, many countries and retail companies are investing in the massive production of UAVs for market as well as government purposes. Nevertheless, most UAVs in all domains, lack even basic cybersecurity mechanisms, thus, posing cybersecurity threats that significantly affect cybersecurity aspects or result in physical damage and even loss of human life. Many cybersecurity solutions have been proposed in the literature, encompassing both reactive and proactive measures, with the latter being preferable. Added to this, threat modeling emerges as an effective proactive measure with minimal cost and complexity. The current work conducts extensive and comprehensive research concerning the domain of UAVs. Initially, the article outlines the historical development of UAVs and the different taxonomies in which they are classified according to different characteristics (e.g., number of rotors). The next sections detail a comprehensive description of the Internet of Drones (IoD) environment and the various relevant cybersecurity issues. Subsequently, the article examines a wide range of diverse threat modeling approaches found in the literature, while it categorizes relevant articles based on whether they describe solutions that integrate threat modeling or propose novel approaches for threat modeling.