UAV-Undertaker: Securely Verifiable Remote Erasure Scheme with a Countdown-Concept for UAV via Randomized Data Synchronization

Abstract

Unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) play an increasingly core role in modern warfare, with powerful but tiny embedded computing systems actively applied in the military field. Confidential data, such as military secrets, may be stored inside military devices such as UAVs, and the capture or loss of such data could cause significant damage to national security. Therefore, the development of securely verifiable remote erasure techniques for military devices is considered a core technology. In this study, we devised a verifiable remote erasure scheme with a countdown-concept using randomized data synchronization to satisfy securely verifiable remote erasure technology. The scheme allows the GCS (Ground Control Station) to remotely erase data stored in the UAV, even on loss of communication, and returns proof of erasure to GCS after erasure. Our approach classifies the accumulated data stored in the UAV as a new data type and applies the characteristics of that data type to generate the proof of erasure. We select a small-volume data sample (rather than all of the data) and perform prior learning only on that sample; in this way, we can obtain the probative power of the evidence of erasure with a relatively small amount of traffic. When we want to erase data of 100 Mbytes of remote device, 100 Mbytes of data transfer is required for related work, whereas our system has data transfer according to the ratio of amount of randomly selected data. By doing this, communication stability can be acquired even in unstable communication situations where the maximum traffic can change or not be predicted. Furthermore, when the UAV sends the proof of erasure to the GCS, the UAV does its best to perform the erasure operation given its situation.