Ultra-petite spy drone can easily hack Wi-Fi and GSM oriented networks

No, he is not just posing gleefully with his custom-made toy airplane. Beneath the sprightly yellow color scheme there is something more 'sinister' at work, as the above pictured conception is an unmanned spy drone. Dubbed as the WASP (Wireless Aerial Surveillance Platform), the aircraft was deftly created by Mike Tassey and Richard Perkins, which will be showcased at this year's Black Hat and Defcon security conferences (yes, the den of universal hackers), in Las Vegas.

Flying Drone

Built from an US Army spy drone, the 14 pound craft measures just 6ft in length with a 6ft wingspan. But instead of the standard petrol powered system, the designers installed a 'low-emission' electric battery pack. Though going green was perhaps the last thing on the mind of these people. The conception is infused with myriad high-tech paraphernalia including a HD camera, an on-board petite Linux computer (which in itself is jammed with advanced network-hacking tools like a custom-built 340 million word dictionary), a 32 GB data storage space and a whopping 11 antennas.

Flying Drone

According to the 'hackers', this mean yet bantam flying contraption will have the capability to crack Wi-Fi network passwords, helped by the on-board VIA EPIA Pico-ITX computer. And if you thought that was audacious, the aircraft can also literally 'eavesdrop' on your GSM network powered conversations. This is done by mimicking the carrier's tower by the intrinsic setup (4G T-mobile card) of the airborne mechanism and the subsequent recording of the data on the 32GB storage space.

The whole conception is an open source project based on the Arduino system, and, as a matter of fact, the designers have already decided to discuss about its 'how to build' techniques. Coming to practicality, this Arduino system helps the aircraft to be pre-programmed and hover around a specific location. But to avoid stringent FCC regulations, the team had made use of radio frequency band specific to Ham radios.

Finally, as to what inspired the team to contrive such an ingenious, yet ominous piece of spying machinery - the reason is simple; it was instigation rather than inspiration. According to one of the designers, Perkins:

We wanted to bring to light how far the consumer industry has progressed, to the point where public has access to technologies that put companies, and even governments at risk from this new threat vector that they’re not aware of.

Via: Geek/Forbes/Rabbit-Hole