Drones have been used in recent years more and more in various economic sectors (e.g., military, agriculture, retail, transport), but also for personal use and entertainment. The current legislative framework and cyber security standards do not fully address the identification of liable stakeholders in the drone ecosystem for cyber-incidents and the requirement to implement preventive cyber-security measures. The aim of this paper is to investigate how the usage of drones fits in the context of the digital economy. For this purpose, we use a complex questionnaire which was sent to a total of 233 respondents from May to July 2021. The responses are analyzed from a qualitative and quantitative perspective. Our results highlight the areas of improvement in the existing legislation and find the following: (1) respondents are willing to pay additional direct and indirect costs related to cyber security to benefit from more secure drones, (2) the entire ecosystem involved in drone production, distribution, and usage is responsible for ensuring the prevention of security breaches, and (3) respondents perceive a shared liability of stakeholders for certain types of cyber-attacks depending on the role of the stakeholders in the drone ecosystem and the type of vulnerability exploited by the cyber-attack. The details on the specific cyber-attack use cases detail each of the above for each type of cyber-attack. Finally, we make proposals to accommodate the new types of use cases brought by the use of drones in various economic contexts. The results of this research paper assist policy makers in terms of improvement to existing legislation in terms of the drone ecosystem. In addition, they increase visibility for stakeholders in the drone ecosystem in terms of aspects to focus on in order to increase the trust of clients in drone usage.

Drones have been included in more and more activities in various domains, such as military, commercial and personal use. The existing legislative framework insufficiently addresses the responsibility and preventive measures angles in case of vulnerability exploitation and negligence in drone usage. Such aspects can be addressed by the industry in technological processes and standardization. These are especially important aspects given the high impact that misuse of drones can have on individuals, property and buildings within the flight zone when the drone is misused. The aim of this research paper is to investigate how these elements are viewed in existing legislation and by individuals, while taking into account the technical specifics and the stakeholder ecosystem of drone usage. In this respect, we use a complex questionnaire which was sent to a final number of 233 respondents pertaining to firms specialized in IT, legal and cybersecurity. The responses have been analyzed from a qualitative and quantitative perspective. Our results highlight the areas of improvement in the existing standardization and find the followings: (1) stakeholders across the drone ecosystem are viewed as having a shared liability in certain use cases, (2) preventive measure implementation should be dispersed across the stakeholders of drone usage and (3) automation of prevention measures is considered more useful in case of malfunctioning or misuse of drones rather than user manual intervention. In addition, we make proposals to accommodate new policy requirements for the above use cases. The results of this research paper assist policy makers in improving existing standardization framework and technological processes concerning drone usage, but also stakeholders of the drone ecosystem in generating increased trust of the drone users. Further, this research paper can also assist drone software and hardware producers in calibrating their products to ensure trust of the users. In addition, trust in the use of drones for commercial and personal purposes is increased through standardization and proper approaches for situations that may cause damages to drones and to third parties.