Hacker Makes Drone to Hijack Other Drones

[NewWorldRecord]

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BY LORENZO FRANCESCHI-BICCHIERAI
8th December 2013

When Amazon's Jeff Bezos announced he wanted to deliver packages by drones, some joked that was good news: they'd be able to get free stuff out of the sky by shooting drones.

That might actually be possible without a gun. Hacker Samy Kamkar has built a modified Parrot AR Drone 2.0 — which, coincidentally, can be purchased on Amazon — that can hijack other Parrot drones in the vicinity, taking control of them. Basically, it's a drone that makes zombie drones.

SEE ALSO: Amazon Drone Delivery: Why It's Not Crazy

Kamkar dubbed his creation SkyJack and published a detailed explanation of how it can be reproduced on his blog Tuesday. All you need is a Parrot AR Drone 2.0 equipped with a tiny Raspberry Pi computer, a battery, two wireless transmitters and Kamkar's software.

His software is where the hacker magic happens. It makes the drone fly around, looking for the wireless signals of other Parrot drones in the vicinity. When it finds a match, it cuts the connection to its owner and takes over.

For now, the hack only affects Parrot-brand drones. But as Ars Technica points out, "the software is built in a way to easily target other types of drones that have communication systems that are similar to Parrot."

Given the poor record of non-military drone makers when it comes to security, this looks to be one more obstacle Amazon will have to overcome before the Prime Air drones can become a reality.

To find out more about how this drone turns other drones into zombies, check out the video above.