Hostile actors could pay teenagers to fly drones

Hostile actors could pay people as little as about 100 euros to fly drones and cause disruption, Kristinn Árni Lár Hróbjartsson, co-founder and executive director of the national security think tank Varða, told mbl.is.

He said payments could be arranged through messaging apps such as Telegram. The person flying the drone might be a teenager who receives money in a PayPal account without knowing anything more, he said.

That can make it harder for authorities to identify who is really behind a drone flight, Kristinn said. The person carrying it out may not know who organised it or why.

Kristinn discussed the issue as a guest on Dagmál, mbl.is’s programme, alongside findings from a report by Varða and Cornell University on drone threats and gaps in Iceland’s response system.