Venezuelan assassination attempt highlights need for UAV security

Two drones armed with explosives detonated near Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro on Aug. 4 in an apparent assassination attempt that took place while he was delivering a speech to hundreds of soldiers, while the speech was being broadcast live on television, according to press reports.

The footage of this apparent assassination attempt can be viewed below.

Drone security solutions company DroneShield issued a statement about the incident. 

“The history of commercial drone incidents involving heads of state goes back to September 2013 when the German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s public appearance was disrupted by a drone, which was apparently a publicity stunt by a competing political party,” said Oleg Vornik, DroneShield’s CEO.

“Yesterday’s apparent drone assassination attempt on Venezuelan President Maduro is the first known drone attack on a head of state. An attempted drone assassination of a sitting sovereign leader demonstrates that, sadly, the era of drone terrorism has well and truly arrived,” Vornik said.

“Technological progress cannot be reversed, and going forward, the security of any asset whose perimeter is protected two-dimensionally on the ground will need to be also protected in the third dimension — from attacks from the air,” Vornik added.

DroneShield supplies counterdrone (counter unmanned aerial system/counter unmanned aerial vehicle/c-UAS) products, which have been successfully deployed in a variety of situations by third parties.

The company’s products have been deployed for counterdrone security at, among others:

• an ASEAN meeting of heads of state,
• several Boston Marathon events over the years,
• the PyeongChang 2018 Olympics and
• the 2018 XXI Commonwealth Games.

Also, a Middle Eastern ministry of defense recently placed a multi-million dollar order for DroneShield’s anti-drone equipment.

The company expect that this latest incident involving a head of state will result in governments around the world accelerating their implementation of anti-drone mitigation measures.