Drone News: DJI Data Breach, FAA Auth Extended, AirData Public Portal, Ohio DOT Drone Surveillance

Welcome to your weekly UAS news update, we have 4 stories for you
this week: DJI Data breach, FAA Authorization extended, AirData
creates public portal for government transparency, and Ohio DOT
to use drones for traffic surveillance.


First up this week is supposed DJI data breach that turned out to
be a complex scam. The “Mogilevich” group claimed online to have
hacked DJI and had a one-terabyte database of information
including prototypes and blueprints of new products. At least one
person or group paid for the non-existent database at a price of
$85,000. The scammers then posted their scam online saying “Now
the real question is? Why confess all this when we could just run
away? This was done to illustrate the process of our scam, We
don't think of ourselves as hackers but rather as criminal
geniuses, if you can call us that.” To be clear, DJI has not been
hacked, the “hack” was instead a scam to convince people to pay
for the non-existent data. We’ll keep you updated if we see
anything else about this.
https://dronexl.co/2024/03/04/hacker-mogilevich-scam-drone-maker-dji/
Second this week, the FAA has gotten another extension in funding
until May 10th, 2024. This is the third extension since the 2018
Reauthorization Act ran out in September of 2023. The US House Of
Representatives passed a bill to reauthorize the FAA for the next
5 years back in July of 2023, but the US Senate has yet to come
to any agreement on FAA Reauthorization. We’ll have to wait and
see if this is another “Kicking the can down the road” fix or if
we’ll get a 5 year reauthorization.
https://generalaviationnews.com/2024/03/05/faa-reauthorization-extended-yet-again-2/
Next this week, AirData has released their “Public Portal”. The
Public Portal is an integrated product for public safety agencies
to publish where drone operations occurred within a city or
municipality. The publishing of these flights allows law
enforcement agencies to be transparent about their operations
after the operations have occurred. Flights are filtered
automatically to protect confidentiality and a department can
tailor what data is released to their needs. According to
AirData, a number of major police departments have assisted with
the design and development of the Public Portal including Chula
Vista PD, Las Vegas Metro PD, and Sacramento PD. For more
information, check out AirData’s website. Last up, the Ohio
Department of Transportation will be using what appears to be a
Censys Sentaero for traffic surveillance along US 33. Along with
the purchase of the Sentaero, the DOT has gotten approval for a
BVLOS waiver and an OOP waiver, allowing the drone to be operated
over people and traffic beyond line of sight. Specific safety
mitigations are not listed in article nor were they available on
the Ohio DOT’s website. It’s unclear when the traffic
surveillance operations will begin, but the drone will also be
used for a number of other operations including GIS operations,
mapping, emergency management, and construction monitoring.
Another innovative use of UAS!
https://www.10tv.com/article/news/local/ohio/odot-to-launch-drone-on-us-route-33/530-1485ea6d-e289-403f-86ed-dc418c306fd8
https://drive.ohio.gov/programs/aam/uas Alright, that’s it, have
a great weekend and we’ll see you next week on Monday for the
live!