Various embodiments of a system and method for secure, authenticated communication with one or more unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) are described herein. The system includes at least one computing system which is operable with instructions to: receive, from an unmanned aerial vehicle of one or more unmanned vehicles, a message; extract, from the message, an unmanned aerial vehicle serial number and a secret key; compute a hash of the secret key to generate a first hashed secret key; retrieve, from an internal database located on a non-transient memory of the at least one computing system, a second hashed secret key associated with the unmanned aerial vehicle serial number; and compare the first hashed secret key with the second hashed secret key to determine whether the message is valid.