WA’s autonomous industrial giants need to rethink the drone threat.
Western Australia’s north-west has a global reputation as a pioneer of industrial autonomy.
The state has the world’s largest fleet of autonomous haul trucks and much of its subsea gas infrastructure is monitored via remote operations centres in Perth.
A new report from the University of Canberra’s Innovation Central Canberra and ASX-listed DroneShield serves as a clarion call in suggesting one of WA’s greatest economic strengths – digital connectivity – is becoming its most vulnerable flank.
The report, released in January, warns Australia’s critical infrastructure is fundamentally unprepared for drone-enabled cyberattacks.
While many WA boards have invested heavily in traditional ‘bits and bytes’ firewalls and physical fences, the space between them, the air, remains a wide-open vector for malicious actors.
The research highlights a widening gap caused by sophisticated drone technology outpacing industry awareness and government guidance.
The threat is no longer just about a drone carrying a camera or a physical payload.
In the era of cyber-physical warfare, a drone is a mobile hacking platform.
It can hover over a remote mine site or a port facility, bypassing the ‘airgap’ of internal networks by mimicking a legitimate WiFi signal or intercepting wireless control traffic.
For an autonomous haulage system, a drone-borne intercept doesn’t just steal data; it could theoretically spoof GPS coordinates or inject malicious code into the operational tech that keeps 400-tonne trucks on their paths.
In the resources sector, where safety first is the mantra, the potential for a drone to cause a coordinated industrial accident is a risk that can no longer be dismissed as science fiction.
Critics might point to the report’s finding that there have been no recorded domestic cyber incidents using drones in Australia to date.
However, as the report’s author Frank den Hartog notes, this is more likely a symptom of limited detection capabilities than a lack of activity.
WA’s infrastructure is distributed across thousands of kilometres. If a drone were to land on a remote pipeline substation to deploy a WiFi harvester, would current monitoring systems even see it?
Currently, the answer for most operators is a resounding ‘no’. Businesses are effectively flying blind in their own airspace.
There are positives for WA’s growing defence and tech ecosystem, however.
The report underscores the need for industry-research collaboration, embodied by the partnership between the University of Canberra and DroneShield.
As the Aukus agreement pulls more defence investment toward WA, the state has an opportunity to lead the nation in sovereign capability.
WA shouldn’t just be a consumer of counter-drone tech; it should be the incubator, the laboratory and the proving ground. Local SMEs, already world class in robotics and remote sensing, are perfectly positioned to pivot into this space.
The report warns that, within the next five years, the evolution of drone-borne cyber techniques will force a mandatory reassessment of risk.
For WA’s critical infrastructure operators, waiting five years is a luxury they don’t have. It’s vital drones are considered less of a nuisance and more a sophisticated tier of cyber threat.
This means integrating counter-drone capabilities into existing security and resilience programs, as the ICC recommends.
It is time for WA business leaders to look up, because the next major cyber breach may not come through a phishing email but instead may have four rotors and be hovering 50 metres above the plant.
