Called ‘AASHVAST’ (Assessment and Analysis of Electronic Systems Hardware for Vulnerabilities and Security Threats), the facility is aimed at enhancing the integrity, reliability and security of mission-critical military electronics.
o strengthen the electronic security of military drones, the Army has set up a special lab that uses advanced software to weed out Chinese components and assess “vulnerabilities” in unmanned systems.
Each drone is examined to verify that it is genuine and has not been modified. The facility, based in New Delhi, scans for hidden passwords, embedded keys and remote-access tools. It also determines whether a drone accepts only manufacturer-approved software updates and evaluates location-security controls that govern its behaviour during GPS spoofing or jamming attempts by an adversary.
Called ‘AASHVAST’ (Assessment and Analysis of Electronic Systems Hardware for Vulnerabilities and Security Threats), the facility is aimed at enhancing the integrity, reliability and security of mission-critical military electronics.
AASHVAST is an analysis and validation suite built for the Directorate General of Electronics and Mechanical Engineering (DG EME). Rajib Roy, the director of QuickPay Tech which established the suite, says “the system addresses a gap that has, until now, gone unexamined in routine practice”.
Anshuman Tripathi, a former member of the National Security Advisory Board (NSAB) and patent holder on “semi-conductor modification”, says “such a system was long overdue”. The Chinese have copied US-designed semiconductors which are virtually the same as the original ones.
The system examines the software embedded in a drone. While airframes are routinely inspected, weighed and bench-tested, the firmware that determines how an aircraft flies, what commands it accepts, and where it can or cannot operate often remains invisible to conventional inspection.
“Hidden keys, embedded credentials, secret command paths or altered flight limits surface only under detailed inspection,” Roy added.
AASHVAST runs entirely offline inside the air-gapped facility and is read-only by design. Nothing is ever written about the aircraft under examination. The software can be read directly off a connected flight controller or camera payload, or uploaded as a stored image.
Findings are rated for their severity and written in plain language, rolled into a single security posture read and exported to a structured record in one action — so that the technician at the bench and the officer signing acceptance work from the same document.
Army Chief General Dhiraj Seth inaugurated the facility on August 14. The Army had then said it would enable the evaluation of critical defence platforms, strengthen cyber resilience, improve operational readiness and promote the growth of the domestic defence ecosystem.
