A Systematic Security Testing Approach for InterUSS-based environments

2026-05-11

AI Summary

This study addresses the underexplored security challenges facing federated unmanned traffic management ecosystems like InterUSS at the infrastructure level. From the perspective of system maintainers, it presents the first systematic security testing methodology tailored to the InterUSS environment. Through real-world deployment and interaction analysis, the work identifies critical components and develops targeted test protocols grounded in established standards such as mutual TLS (mTLS) and OAuth 2.0. The resulting framework delivers the first reusable security testing guide for this domain, enabling effective validation of individual components and evaluation of their secure interoperability. This contribution fills a significant gap in existing research by providing a practical, standards-based approach to assessing the security posture of federated unmanned systems infrastructures.

Abstract

Unmanned Traffic Management (UTM) federated ecosystems, such as InterUSS, enable secure coordination among UAS Service Suppliers (USSs). However, they bring up some security challenges at the infrastructure level that haven't been fully explored. This paper presents a security testing approach for InterUSS-based environments from the maintainer's perspective. By deploying and analyzing a working InterUSS infrastructure, we pinpoint key components and develop specific security tests aligned with established standards and protocols, such as mTLS and OAuth 2.0. We compiled these tests into a Testing Guide that aids both component validation and interaction analysis across InterUSS-based ecosystems, filling a gap in current research.

Problem

• InterUSS
• Unmanned Traffic Management
• security challenges
• federated ecosystems
• infrastructure security

Innovation

• InterUSS
• security testing
• Unmanned Traffic Management
• federated ecosystem
• mTLS