Drone Use Within Critical Infrastructure - A Security Perspective

Abstract: The use of drones is increasing not just for private use, but also for companieswithin different sectors including critical infrastructures, such as the energysector. This due to the many benefits that drones can bring in terms of loweredcosts, increased safety for people, better accessibility, and more, whenconducting varies activities such as inspections and looking for errors.Although the use of drones may be comprised of benefits, drones may also beprone to security risks related to privacy, safety, as well as informationsecurity and the confidentiality, integrity, and availability of the informationthat is collected. This Master´s thesis focused on the critical infrastructuresector following an energy company in Sweden and their use of drones forconducting various operations. The thesis also investigated how security risksfocusing on information security are viewed by the company in terms oflikelihood and consequence and how the company handles these risks. Risksrelated to information security may be caused by threats such as adversaries,technical malfunctions, weather, and climate. The seriousness of the risksmuch depend on the sensitivity of the information and, how much theinformation covers, for example of the power grid. With regards to likelihood,a factor in play is whether the information would be possible for another partyto collect as well as if information would be possible to collect at anothertime. This would impact whether an adversary would gain anything fromcompromising the information collected using a drone or, how technicalmalfunctions and natural occurrences affecting the drone, and the informationcollected would cause problems if the flight is possible to conduct at anothertime. The thesis was conducted using a qualitative approach in the form of asingle-case study.