A Study on Employing UPTANE for Secure Software Update OTA in Drone Environments

Software updates over the air (OTA) enable devices and systems to maintain up-to-date software without physical intervention. However, software updates OTA could be the target of attackers as its ecosystems include multiple attack surfaces. In this paper, we show the case study of the adaptation of UPTANE for drone environments. While UPTANE is designed to support the automotive environments, we perceive that it can be used flexibly in drone environments. We show how our customization supports unique characteristics of drone environments, not only for a single drone but also for a drone swarm. We illustrate that the proposed design is resilient against known attack scenarios and provides efficiency in drone environments.