The Micro Air Vehicle Link (MAVLink) protocol presents no authentication mechanism on its version 1.0 (nor authorization) whichs leads to a variety of attacks including identity spoofing, unauthorized access, PITM attacks and more. According to literature, version 2.0 optionally allows for package signing which mitigates this flaw. Another source mentions that MAVLink 2.0 only provides a simple authentication system based on HMAC. This implies that the flying system overall should add the same symmetric key into all devices of network. If not the case, this may cause a security issue, that if one of the devices and its symmetric key are compromised, the whole authentication system is not reliable.
This vulnerability carries a CRITICAL severity rating with a CVSS v3.1 score of 9.8, indicating it can be exploited remotely over the network with relatively low complexity without requiring user interaction and does not require pre-existing privileges . The vulnerability impacts confidentiality (data exposure), integrity (unauthorized modifications), and availability (service disruption) for affected systems. Impacting 1 product from dronecode organizations running these solutions should prioritize assessment and patching.
Reported in 2020, this vulnerability emerged during an era marked by increased sophistication in supply chain attacks, cloud infrastructure vulnerabilities, and software-as-a-service (SaaS) security challenges. Security practices during this period emphasized zero-trust architectures, container security, and API protection.
2020-07-03T15:15:09.870
2024-11-21T04:55:08.047
Modified
CVSSv3.1: 9.8 (CRITICAL)
AV:N/AC:L/Au:N/C:P/I:P/A:P
10.0
6.4
| Type | Vendor | Product | Version/Range | Vulnerable? |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Application | dronecode | micro_air_vehicle_link | 1.0.0 | Yes |
SecUtils normalizes and enriches National Vulnerability Database (NVD) records by standardizing vendor and product identifiers, aggregating vulnerability metadata from both NVD and MITRE sources, and providing structured context for security teams. For dronecode's affected products, we extract Common Platform Enumeration (CPE) data, Common Weakness Enumeration (CWE) classifications, CVSS severity metrics, and reference data to enable rapid vulnerability prioritization and asset correlation. This record contains no exploit code, proof-of-concept instructions, or attack methodologies—only defensive intelligence necessary for patch management, risk assessment, and security operations.