Simulating a Drone Data Breach: Legal and Technical Incident Response Guided by NIST 800-61

The use of drones has grown significantly in both commercial and recreational sectors, prompting increased regulatory attention. Moreover, privacy becomes a major concern, as drones equipped with cameras can easily invade personal spaces without consent. Hence, security and legal considerations must be incorporated into platform design to ensure compliance with relevant laws and to protect drones from attacks that could compromise their operation or result in the loss of sensitive data. On the other hand, as smartphones are increasingly employed to control drones and store captured media, their loss can expose sensitive data such as images and videos to unauthorized access. In this paper, we demonstrate through a scenario-based case study, the critical need for robust security practices in drone-smartphone integration to mitigate the risk of information leakage following device compromise. In particular, we apply the NIST 800-61 incident handling framework to a simulated data breach scenario involving an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV). The scenario models a case in which a drone controlled by a mobile device inadvertently exposes sensitive images after the mobile device loss. Through this example, we illustrate how organizations can leverage NIST guidelines to effectively detect, contain, and recover from similar security incidents.