The incident in the White House has come less than two weeks after a drone flew over the French presidential palace in Paris.
Drones can fly at low altitudes and, hence, detecting these devices poses a challenge to those involved in providing security cover to people who matter.
As the Secret Service has clarified - the drone was a 2-foot-long commercially available "quadcopter." An officer posted on the south grounds of the White House complex had, reportedly, "heard and observed" the device "flying at a very low altitude" shortly after 3 a.m. ET. It was a commercially available device and did not pose any threat.
However, the possible dangers of drones cannot be ruled out. As Caroline Baylon, a cybersecurity researcher at the Royal Institute of International Affairs, Chatham House, in London, has indicated – due to their small size and ability to hover low over the ground, the drones can pose a huge security headache.
Drones have opened up an area that has not been defended before – most of the available radars cannot detect drones that have the ability to fly really low.
