Loading story…
U.S. officials said Joint Interagency Task Force 401 (JIATF-401) is building a national counter-drone surveillance and response network after repeated unauthorized drone incursions exposed significant gaps in domestic detection and defense. The task force, established by the Department of Defense as a joint interagency effort, brings together federal partners including the FBI, DHS, FAA, and law enforcement to improve low-altitude air-domain awareness and coordinate responses to potentially hostile unmanned aircraft over military installations, civilian areas, and major public events.
Officials described the 2026 FIFA World Cup in the United States as a major operational test of that effort, with authorities detecting more than 1,600 unauthorized drones, seizing more than 700 systems, opening about 120 federal cases, and arresting 12 people. The government is also shifting toward broader state and local participation under a DHS-DOJ interim final rule that took effect July 1, with roughly 500 officers already trained, as agencies prepare for future high-profile events including the 2028 Los Angeles Olympics and seek scalable, lower-cost nationwide counter-UAS capabilities.
Track how attackers are adapting to this technology.
4 events from the most recent confirmed update back to the earliest known activity.
By the end of the 2026 FIFA World Cup in July, U.S. authorities had detected more than 1,600 unauthorized drones across 11 host cities while enforcing FAA flight restrictions around stadiums, fan zones, hotels, and training sites. Authorities also seized more than 700 drone systems, opened about 120 federal cases, and arrested 12 people.
A DHS-DOJ interim final rule took effect allowing state, local, tribal, and territorial law enforcement to be trained and certified to detect and, in some cases, disable threatening unmanned aircraft. Officials said about 500 officers had already been trained under the rule.
The Department of Defense established Joint Interagency Task Force 401 as an Army-led effort to better align government authorities and resources for domestic counter-drone defense. Brig. Gen. Matt Ross leads the task force.
Joint Interagency Task Force 401 convened its second summit in Virginia with more than 200 military, federal, law enforcement, and industry participants. Officials reviewed domestic drone threats, World Cup operations, and preparations for future events including the 2028 Los Angeles Olympics.
Follow how adversaries are adapting to this technology, and where it touches your stack today.
2 references tracked. Mallory keeps watching after this page renders.
Map indicators from this story to your assets and identify affected systems in minutes.
Every observed campaign, victim, and pivot linked to actors named in this story.
Malware, exploits, and IOCs connected to the activity described here.
YARA, Sigma, and Snort rules deployed to your SIEM as soon as they’re published.
Get matching new stories delivered to your team as they break — not the next morning.
Ask questions about this story and take action on the answers.
Other stories Mallory is tracking that overlap on entities, sources, or topic labels.
U.S. military leaders said small unmanned aircraft are increasingly threatening both domestic installations and overseas operations, prompting a broader push to improve counter-drone defenses. Gen. Gregory Guillot told lawmakers that **350 drone detections** were reported over the past year across **100 U.S. military installations**, with the primary concern being surveillance of sensitive capabilities by known and unknown actors. He said existing authorities under `Title 10, Section 130i` are too narrow because only about half of installations are covered and commanders often cannot act against drones flying just outside base perimeters. NORTHCOM and NORAD have since established a dedicated counter-drone operations branch, and the Pentagon designated NORTHCOM as the lead coordinator for counter-small UAS efforts in the continental United States and Alaska. At the same time, the Pentagon is continuing to send counter-UAS systems to the Middle East through **Joint Interagency Task Force 401** as regional tensions and an unstable ceasefire sustain demand for air defense. JIATF-401 said it committed more than **$600 million** in counter-drone defenses for Operation Epic Fury and domestic missions, including about **$350 million** in roughly 30 days for CENTCOM. Officials and outside experts said the threat now spans Iran-backed drone activity, lessons from the Russia-Ukraine war, unauthorized flights over bases such as **Barksdale Air Force Base**, southern border operations, and security planning for major events including the **2026 FIFA World Cup**. The Defense Department is also testing commercially available systems through Falcon Peak exercises to detect, track, identify, and defeat low-emission and no-emission drones.
Jun 29, 2026
The U.S. Department of Homeland Security and Department of Justice issued an interim final rule expanding counter-`UAS` authority to qualified state and local law enforcement agencies, allowing them to use drone-detection technology and, for specially trained personnel, to mitigate or disable drones deemed public safety threats. The rule took effect retroactively from July 1, 2026, requires annual accreditation through an FBI-operated federal portal, officer certification for detection activities, operational coordination and reporting, and a two-week mitigation training course at the FBI’s National Counter-UAS Training Center at Redstone Arsenal for personnel authorized to take drones down. Officials cited rising risks to critical infrastructure and more than 600 drone incidents in restricted airspace during the ongoing World Cup as justification for the change, while public comments remain open through September 4. The expanded framework builds on federal counter-drone powers first established in 2018 and broadened again through a 2025 defense funding measure, extending practical enforcement reach beyond federal agencies. Civil liberties advocates warn that the same authorities can enable broad seizure of drones under civil forfeiture rules, with owners potentially losing aircraft even when they are caught by complex temporary flight restrictions or overlapping FAA authorization systems such as `LAANC`. The debate has sharpened around whether the new regime appropriately addresses security threats or gives law enforcement excessive discretion to confiscate or neutralize drones used by ordinary operators near major events and other sensitive locations.
Jul 16, 2026
U.S. authorities have expanded counter-drone operations that can disrupt airspace and rely on technical methods to seize or disable unmanned aircraft. In one reported incident, airspace over El Paso was temporarily closed after the Pentagon authorized Customs and Border Protection to use an anti-drone laser, underscoring how drone threats are increasingly affecting civilian aviation and border-area operations. At the same time, civil-liberties advocates warned that some counter-UAS programs depend on exploiting weak drone security or undisclosed vulnerabilities to take control of aircraft. The concerns follow reporting that the FBI has taken over drones near the Inglewood stadium during World Cup security operations and that vendors such as **D-Fend Solutions** market RF-based "cyber takeover" tools, raising fears that retaining such flaws for government use could leave consumer drones and control protocols broadly exposed to malicious actors.
Jul 31, 2026