AST Digital Magazine October 2017 Digital-Oct | Page 39

October 2017
Edition
Volume 17
Countering
the Threat of Unauthorized
Drones
With MESMER®
Guest OpEd by Jonathan Hunter, CEO, Department 13
The MESMER Counter Drone System is a unique, patented
drone mitigation solution that can stop, redirect, land or take
total control of a drone to provide a safe & effective method of
protecting personnel & infrastructure from dangerous drones.
Drones have proliferated in the market for a
variety of applications.
Unfortunately, some drones are being used for
nefarious purposes.
Drones have been weaponized to carry danger-
ous payload and have also been armed with op-
tics that can capture an organization’s valuable
intellectual property.
As unauthorized drone flights continue to grab
the media spotlight, security officers at a wide
variety of organizations need to be mindful of the
threats they pose.
It is crucial to implement an effective strategy to
counter drones, and this ought to be part of the
general situational awareness maintained by an
organization.
Specifically, the extent to which drones pose a
threat to an organization’s cybersecurity, and to
its intellectual property as well as to the safety of
its personnel, must be recognized and dealt with
satisfactorily.
What kinds of physical damage can potentially
be caused by unauthorized drone flights?
As recently witnessed in reports from around the
globe—including from war-torn regions such as
Syria and Iraq—drones have the potential to be
utilized as precision devices with bombing capa-
bilities and can cause havoc as they are used as
a “poor man’s air force.”
Sophisticated drones may be outfitted to inter-
cept data that can compromise the organization.
Meanwhile, there is a psychological compo-
nent as well:
Even when the threat of drone attack is not im-
minent, the general fear and anxiety generated
by the potential risk of an attack can negatively
impact an organization’s operational efficiencies.
Traditional strategies to mitigate the potential
damage of drones are limited in scope, since
current legislation mandates that it is illegal to
shoot down a drone.
(What is MESMER? Find out here. Courtesy of Department
13 and YouTube)
The drone threat
In any event, simply shooting one out of the sky
is not an advisable strategy, because it fails to
control where the drone may fall—if the craft is
carrying an explosive device, the potential for
damage is great.