Defeating Pesky Drones on Superyachts

Drones have presented a problem to superyachts for some time, diminishing the guest experience and impacting the privacy of both guests and crew. The impact of this is debatable and some are more accepting of drone attention than others. Although for some VVIP owners and guests, privacy is precious and they do not want their time with family and friends to be exposed, furthermore, disclosure of intimate images, or even extortion could prove devastating.

At CND our core business is cyber security, however, we also secure your information and provide operational security, when we find drone footage of our client's superyachts we are often asked what can be done. This blog post outlines some serious issues such as, the realistic response to drones, how CND analysts can help to find the footage and detection procedures beyond seeing and hearing them, but it also covers some military solutions and humorous alternative methods for defeating drones.

Whilst we have reported on several products, they are merely representative examples, there are many out there, if you have a positive or negative experience of any products please comment below

 A Realistic Response to Drones

The growing popularity of drones suggests that they aren't going away anytime soon. Fortunately, they are being increasingly regulated and the regulations should restrict them from getting too close to vessels, if the pilots abide by the regulations, which vary country to country. It is recommended that any superyachts with a significant privacy risk, read the drone regulations pertaining to the territorial waters on their itinerary.

In Europe, for drones over 250g, the pilot needs to be licensed (just a theory test and a fee) which will hopefully make them more responsible, especially if they are commercial drone pilots. In some countries the drones need to have the operator ID visible on the drone, although realistically this won't be readable unless they get REALLY close.  Larger drones, over 25KG, will soon have to have Remote ID fitted, which is similar to AIS for drones.

If a drone is filming your vessel and they are meeting the regulations governing distance pertinent to your waters, there is very little you can do legally.  Even if they post footage online, your options are limited, UNLESS, they post images of people, you may then be able to instigate a response under privacy laws to have the footage taken down, most platforms will respond to these requests without the need to resort to legal action.

Sacrificial Person. Instinctively most crew avoid being filmed by drones, however, given the above, perhaps you could have someone volunteering to be filmed by the drone to increase your chances of any publicly available footage being taken down.

 Finding The Drone Footage

After you have been buzzed by a drone, finding the resultant footage online can be an issue, and finding it quickly is important before it is shared, the more widely it is shared the lower your chance of taking it all down. Our Superyacht Intelligence analysts noticed that several superyacht service providers, regularly share and reshare any drone and close up images of superyachts as clickbait to attract visitors to their site. 

 Superyacht Intelligence

Our Open Source Intelligence Analysts and their tools, constantly trawl the Internet looking for any mention of your Motor Yacht, whilst this extends to everything, from TikTok to LinkedIn and from 3rd party supplier websites to TripAdvisor, the artificial intelligence also reads the content, looking for the sentiment of the post, be that positive, neutral or negative. "We had a terrible charter" Needless to say, we also find drone footage. Please visit our page on Superyacht Intelligence (OSINT) (cndltd.com)

One recent investigation, after we discovered a public release, found a drone pilot who specialises in superyacht footage to have violated a number of national drone regulations, flying too low (>250g) over a commercial building (yacht), too close to humans and over a nature reserve, we didn't even need to get into the Flight Restriction Zone of the helipad.

 Drone Detection

There are numerous systems on the market to detect drones before you see them, they use a variety of detection methods, such detecting RF transmissions (radio signals), radar to scan the air looking for them and even the camera lenses on drones, also good for detecting shore and ship based paparazzi.  Aartos even have a long range speaker, to warn passengers and also the drone pilot.

CND have not evaluated the product linked below and it is only shown as a product example.

More Drastic Drone Responses 

With top end commercial drones costing upwards of $4,000, their owners can be extremely protective and if their drones are threatened they will probably retreat. The FPV attack drone mentioned below will certainly achieve this, though admittedly you risk losing your own drone to the depths. The responses below are informational and not intended to be realistically considered.

Attack Drone. An opportunity for Superyacht ETO's to release their inner Maverick and take out some pesky drones in true Top Gun fashion!  For less than $1,000 you could be the owner of an attack race drone. You wear virtual reality goggles to see where you are going and control a First Person View (FPV) drone using an XBox-esque controller. This is viable, but unlikely.

"This is what I call a target-rich environment....I feel the need, the need for speed" 

by Maverick

Firehose. Limited in range, difficult to get onto target and slow enough for the drone to avoid, but a great way to show your displeasure. 

Shotgun. Unless you're a special forces ninja, a standard rifle is not feasible as the target is agile and small, moreover, if you miss where will the bullet end up? A shotgun has a wider spread and the range is greatly reduced. 

Another safer option is firing a net from a specialised rifle at the drone. 

RF Jammer. Jamming the control signals is illegal in many geographical regions as it involves transmitting signals over a wide band, which might impact more than just the target drone. There are numerous highly targeted drone jammers on the market.

GPS Jammer. This is popular topic on hacking sites and academic thesis, where the GPS signals are spoofed to control the drone. The reality of spoofing GPS is very much real and has also been used to good effect to control the passage of ships.

Interceptor Drones. The 2022 Qatar World Cup will use autonomous, radar-guided interceptor drones - dubbed DroneHunters to tackle small consumer drones by firing nets to snare the target drone which may then be carried to another location

Anti Drone Laser Weapon. These weapons are designed to defend against small commercial drones the systems are designed to be cost effective and are an interesting development to the defence against drones.

Eagles. We left the best until almost last, perfect over water and generally awesome, the use of hawks rather than eagles has been explored by numerous authorities with varying success, probably more suited to a gallant 1st Officer or Captain than the ETO.

Summary 

We hope you enjoyed this blog and that it had a balance of interest and humour, we removed the part which covered the weaponisation of drones, such as drone mounted RPGs, although there is a threat.  Many of our superyacht clients take drone footage extremely seriously.

Over many years, CND has been providing cyber security to superyachts. In our experience, we have learnt that they are unlike any other maritime vessel. The priorities and protocols onboard are vastly different and must be respected. The usual cyber rules don't necessarily apply.