pip install red-specter-specter-drone
Autonomous drone systems are deployed at scale in critical infrastructure, logistics, defence, and public safety. The protocols, AI stacks, and firmware supply chains underpinning them were designed for performance — not security. No tool existed to operationalise attacks against them until now.
The protocol powering most commercial and research drones has no signing, no encryption, and no source authentication in version 1. Any host on the network can inject commands. PARAM_SET, MISSION_ITEM, COMMAND_LONG — all accepted without verification. Fleet size exposed via passive heartbeat capture.
MAVLink HEARTBEAT packets identify system_id=1 as the swarm leader. There is no cryptographic proof of leader identity. ROGUE swarm leader HEARTBEAT impersonation redirects the entire fleet's coordination channel. Consensus poisoning via PARAM_SET completes the takeover.
A 30cm printed adversarial patch causes YOLOv8-based drone vision to misclassify persons as background with 78% confidence drop. No model access required — pure black-box FGSM/PGD attack. Physical patches work at under 50m AGL.
ARMING_CHECK, FENCE_ENABLE, FS_THR_ENABLE, FS_BATT_ENABLE — flight controller safety parameters — are settable via unauthenticated PARAM_SET in MAVLink v1. Disabling these silently creates conditions for catastrophic flight incidents without any visible indicators to the operator.
ArduPilot, PX4, and DJI update endpoints accept firmware without cryptographic verification. AI model weight poisoning via MD5 checksum corruption bypasses most integrity checks. A single compromised OTA server can persist malicious firmware across an entire fleet.
MAVLink fuzzing is theoretically documented. No tool operationalises it with physical consequence tracking. No tool maps adversarial ML patches to drone hardware outcomes. SPECTER DRONE is the first offensive security tool built specifically for AI-assisted autonomous drone systems.
Eight subsystems. Each one attacks a different surface of the autonomous drone stack. Every finding carries a mandatory physical_consequence field. Every report maps to MITRE ATLAS. WARLORD-compatible JSON output with tool_number=65.
| # | Subsystem | Mode | What It Does |
|---|---|---|---|
| 01 | SURVEY | STANDARD | Passive drone fleet reconnaissance. MAVLink heartbeat analysis, fleet enumeration, GCS fingerprinting, ROS 2 node discovery, OTA endpoint detection. Protocol version extraction — v1 vs v2. |
| 02 | PERCEPTION_SPOOF | FORGE | Adversarial ML attacks against drone vision. FGSM, PGD, and physical patch generation against YOLOv8, MobileNetV3, ResNet-50. Black-box — no model weights required. |
| 03 | SWARM_HIJACK | FORGE | Swarm intelligence network attacks. Leader HEARTBEAT impersonation, consensus poisoning via PARAM_SET, ROS 2 /swarm/leader and /cmd_vel topic hijacking. |
| 04 | GROUND_LINK | FORGE | MAVLink ground control link exploitation. v1/v2 packet fuzzing, telemetry injection, MAVFTP probe. 20+ fuzz packets per session — HEARTBEAT, PARAM_SET, MISSION_ITEM, COMMAND_LONG. |
| 05 | AUTONOMY_STACK | FORGE | Flight controller parameter poisoning and mode switching. Targets RTL_ALT, FENCE_ENABLE, ARMING_CHECK, FS_THR_ENABLE, FS_BATT_ENABLE. ROS 2 node impersonation, waypoint injection. |
| 06 | OTA_POISON | FORGE | Over-the-air supply chain attacks. Firmware injection vectors (ArduPilot/PX4/DJI), AI model weight poisoning, MD5 checksum corruption, config file poisoning. |
| 07 | EVIDENCE | STANDARD | Physical consequence classification per finding. Mandatory consequence field: none / flight_disruption / navigation_error / forced_landing / crash_risk. Chain of custody. |
| 08 | REPORT | STANDARD | WARLORD-compatible JSON. tool_number=65, physical_consequence_summary per engagement. Per-finding CVSS, MITRE ATLAS mapping. |
Run the full drone attack chain against a target fleet — every subsystem, every physical consequence classified:
Every finding carries a mandatory consequence rating — none, flight_disruption, navigation_error, forced_landing, or crash_risk. The first tool in the world to do this for drone AI attacks.
FGSM and PGD attacks against YOLOv8, MobileNetV3, ResNet-50. No model weights required. Physical patch generation at 30cm range — printable and deployable in the field.
Every report cryptographically signed with Ed25519. SHA-256 evidence chains. Chain of custody maintained throughout. physical_consequence_summary field in every WARLORD JSON output.
Every finding maps to a MITRE ATLAS technique. AML.T0043, AML.T0040, AML.T0051, AML.T0056, AML.T0048, AML.T0037 — full adversarial ML coverage across all 8 subsystems.
Connected to the centralised 961-payload library. 25 drone_ai_exploitation payloads (PAY-2026-937 to PAY-2026-961) specifically built for SPECTER DRONE engagements. MAVLink fuzzing, adversarial patch, swarm disruption.
MAVLink v1 allows unauthenticated PARAM_SET to any reachable flight controller. These five parameters control safety-critical behaviour — disabling them silently creates direct physical risk with no visible indicators to the operator.
| Parameter | Risk | Physical Consequence | CVSS |
|---|---|---|---|
| RTL_ALT | Return-to-launch altitude manipulation — drone overshoots/undershoots return altitude | navigation_error | 7.5 |
| FENCE_ENABLE | Geofence disable — drone exits authorised operational boundary | forced_landing | 8.2 |
| ARMING_CHECK | Safety pre-arm check bypass — arms without completing safety validation | crash_risk | 9.0 |
| FS_THR_ENABLE | Throttle failsafe disable — loss of signal no longer triggers safe return | crash_risk | 8.8 |
| FS_BATT_ENABLE | Battery failsafe disable — low battery no longer triggers return/landing | forced_landing | 8.0 |
SPECTER DRONE is Tool 65 of the NIGHTFALL offensive pipeline. Physical layer drone AI attacks complete the fleet — from LLM testing at Stage 1 through to autonomous drone system exploitation at Stage 65. Findings feed directly into AI Shield as blocking rules.
Red Specter SPECTER DRONE is intended for authorised security testing only. Unauthorised use against systems you do not own or have explicit written permission to test may violate the Computer Misuse Act 1990 (UK), Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (US), and equivalent legislation in other jurisdictions. Always obtain written authorisation before conducting any security assessments. GPS spoofing and active RF transmission require spectrum authority in your jurisdiction — consult Ofcom (UK), the FCC (US), or the relevant national regulator before any active RF testing. Apache License 2.0.
Most security testing frameworks are menus that shell out to existing tools behind a terminal UI. SPECTER DRONE is actual engineering. MAVLink packet construction, adversarial ML attack generation, ROS 2 topic injection, OTA firmware vector analysis — all written from scratch in pure Python. Zero subprocess calls. Zero external tool dependencies.
Export every drone AI finding directly to your SIEM. One flag. Native format translation. Ed25519 signatures and RFC 3161 timestamps preserved across every export. physical_consequence_summary included in all SIEM events.
specter-drone survey --target 192.168.1.100 --adapter mavlink --export-siem splunk