Washington’s Center for Advanced Defense Studies (C4ADS) released a startling report recently – “Above Us Only Stars: Exposing GPS Spoofing in Russia and Syria.” The report details findings on foreign actors and their spoofing of legitimate GPS and GNSS signals in order to manipulate position, navigation, and timing. The report proves beyond doubt how very real and serious this problem has become.
The report, based on independent investigation from November 2017 to 2018, concluded that everything from cellular communications, stock trading and basic consumer goods to high-end military systems are vulnerable; by attacking positioning, navigation and timing (PNT) data, state and private activists can cause significant damage to modern militaries, major economies and everyday consumers alike. And, with recent technological advances, the tools and methodologies for conducting this interference are now at a high risk of proliferation. From the report: “the low cost, commercial availability, and ease of deployment of these [GNSS spoofing] technologies will empower not only states, but also insurgents, terrorists, and criminals in a wide range of destabilizing state-sponsored and non-state illicit networks.”
Governments and corporations need to be implementing solutions immediately that will prevent GNSS spoofing attacks, which, in the words of this report, “endanger everything from global navigational safety to civilian finance, logistics, and communication systems.” This is a complexproblem, and its solution will certainly involve a variety of technologies for different applications. Fortunately, solutions – such as Satellite Time and Location (STL) and others – are available today.
At Satelles, we are passionate about defending the world from such attacks and we are proud to be working with industry and governments to deliver solutions that solve this problem today
