# Preliminary Examination of Emergent Threat and Risk Landscapes in Intelligent Harvesting Robots
## 4 Security and Safety Issues
### Network Security Issues  
This category includes threats that target the external network the IHR use to communicate with external devices (Control Tablet, AMB, etc.). The operator uses short range communication to remotely send commands to both the IHR and the AMB. This is usually conducted via a Wi-Fi access point created by the IHR. Knowing that the wireless communication channel is also used to send storage related data, attackers could launch many attack vectors to break the Wi-Fi network by targeting many areas:  
* Attacks targeting communication between IHR/AMB and the Control Tablet: The most critical threat is hijacking the entire communication between the robots and the control table which enables the attacker to connect to the unprotected network and starts eavesdropping information. After sufficient reconnaissance, an attacker then inject new, malicious packets into the network, in order to impact the harvesting operation. The authors in [10] investigated the impact of exploiting wireless vulnerabilities on the actions of tele-operated surgical robots. The study showed that the hijacking, disruption and interception of data on the wireless communication channel can have serious consequences on the robot and the safety of patients and surgeons. For the IHR, this could cause a significant degradation in performance or even unavailability of the system.  
Attacks targeting communication between IHR and the AMB: The Autonomous Mobile Basket constantly or periodically checks the storage state of the portable basket integrated into the Intelligent Harvesting Robot. This also requires a short range communication between both robots. Attackers can disrupt the communication channel by sending special wireless deauthentication packets to both robots (or one of them) to temporarily or even permanently disable them from being able to connect back to the storage system targeting the availability of systems and data. Attackers can also target the confidentiality of data by simply analysing the traffic between both robots. This could be conducted by either passively monitoring the transmitted robotic traffic over encrypted and un-encrypted open communication channels. The aim is to extract sensitive data about the robotic system. Another approach is to actively intercept storage related data and altering it by injecting false data, which deviates the robots from performing their intended activity in an accurate manner, or leave them prone to response delays.
* Attacks targeting communication between IHR/AMB and the Base Station: This set of attack vectors target the localisation and mobility systems of both robots by launching jamming and spoofing attacks. An adversary can jam the wireless sensor and communications producing radio interference to disrupt wireless networks so that the sensors cannot receive GPS related data. Additionally, an adversary can also spoof communications by emitting false signals (e.g., GNSS-like signals, with the intention of producing false location-based information in the victim receiver). Malicious signals can also be exploited to negatively affect the communication channels of wireless sensors. For example, the goal in the latter case may be to deplete battery life or even block the communication channel so that the sensors cannot return their readings. Both examples have a direct impact on availability. This will cause problems to the Automatic Crop Recognition which depend on the target sensor and therefore the associated functionality of IHR/AMB [30].