Drone aims to eavesdrop on Wi-Fi from the sky

A pair of security engineers at the Black Hat security conference have shown off a retrofitted US Army target drone that can eavesdrop on Wi-Fi, phone and Bluetooth signals from the air.

Researchers Mike Tassey and Rich Perkins have adapted a US Army drone to sniff wireless signals. Photo credit: Declan McCullagh/CNET News

The drone — which co-creators Mike Tassey and Rich Perkins called WASP, for Wireless Aerial Surveillance Platform — can stay aloft for about an hour. While it is an autonomous unmanned aerial vehicle, or UAV, in flight, the initial version requires manual operator control for takeoff and landing. (It cost them between $6,000 (£3,670) and $7,000 to build in a garage, they said, not counting their own time.)

Aerial drones can gain access to places that might be off-limits to vehicles and, in theory, can follow a moving signal surreptitiously from above.

"We can identify a target by his cell phone and follow him home to where enterprise security doesn't reach," said Perkins, a security engineer. "We can reverse-engineer someone's life."

For more on this ZDNet UK-selected story, see Wireless drone sniffs Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, phone signals on CNET News.