Security Risks of Low-altitude Economy

Security Risks of Low-altitude Economy

January 28, 2025 | NSFOCUS

The low-altitude economy is becoming an important force to promote economic growth by virtue of its innovative ability and huge development potential. From UAV logistics distribution to urban air traffic, from emergency rescue to aerial photography and mapping, the application scenarios of low-altitude economy have been continuously expanded, and the market scale has been expanding too. However, with the rapid development of low-altitude economy, network security problems have become increasingly prominent and become a key factor restricting the sustainable development of low-altitude economy. The low-altitude economy is highly dependent on advanced information technology and complex system integration, with open network architecture, various application services and frequent data exchanges, which brings unprecedented cyber security threats. Security incidents such as network attacks, data breaches and system intrusion will not only bring economic losses but also threaten public safety and national security. Therefore, building a systematic and all-round network security system has become an urgent task for the development of low-altitude economy.

Based on this background, NSFOCUS Security Lab analyzed the current situation and main challenges of low-altitude economic network security from multiple perspectives such as industry dynamics, standard policies and risk analysis. We will release a series of articles based on this topic.

Main security risks of low-altitude economy can be concluded as below:

  • Privacy security risks

When a low-altitude aircraft performs its mission, it may collect personal privacy information, such as face images and voice recordings. The lack of privacy protection measures may lead to the disclosure of personal privacy and infringement on citizens’ right to privacy.

  • Data security risk

The low-altitude economy involves a large amount of sensitive data, such as geographic information data, flight path data and user personal information. Once leaked, it will pose a serious threat to national security and social stability.

  • Supply chain security risk

The low-altitude economic industrial chain involves many suppliers, and any problem in the supply chain may affect the safety of the whole system.

  • System security risk

The control system of UAV, aircraft and other equipment may be attacked, resulting in system paralysis or malicious control, causing serious accidents.

  • Identity authentication risk

Low-altitude economic activities involve the participation of multiple parties, and an imperfect identity authentication mechanism can easily lead to security incidents such as counterfeit and deception.

  • Communication security risk

The communication link may suffer from attacks such as interference, interception and tampering, resulting in communication interruption or information leakage.

The cyber security risks that lie in low-altitude economy show a trend of diversification and complexity. We will look into this topic in the following posts.