Cyber Threats and Cybersecurity Reassessed in UAV-assisted Cyber Physical Systems

This study aims to perceive the potential security threats in unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) assisted communication networks and to determine the feasible and effective security solutions in order to ensure secured UAV assisted cyber physical system (CPS) (UAV-a-CPS). Fifth generation (5G) and beyond wireless technology is capable to provide support for a plethora of data hungry and time sensitive applications. UAV is one of the vital features of 5G and beyond cellular technology to be deployed in a wide gamut of applications. Since the application domain of UAV networks includes civilian, aviation, and military sectors, thus it can be a prime target to the hackers. This work emphasizes the security issues that require to be prioritized and addressed with appropriate security measures to make UAV-a-CPS secured and safe enough for commercial applications. Moreover, we provide several innovative, scalable, and insightful design considerations to encounter security threats inherent to UAV networks. It is shown that the multi-layer based adaptive security approaches would be beneficial to protect UAV-a-CPS from the potential and emerging security threats effectively. Finally, we provide probable futuristic research directions to add newer dimensions in these arena.