2024-04-30 16:51:59
Russia is accused of carrying out ever-increasing operations to jam GPS signals in northern Europe. Enough to put airlines on alert, whose flights might be disrupted by this type of attack. Incidents which also draw attention to the potential in terms of damage from GPS signal interference.
No more Finnair planes will land for a month at Tartu airport, the second largest in Estonia, the airline announced on Monday April 29. The cause: incidents linked to the GPS signal which have multiplied in recent months in the Baltic Sea region.
Tartu Airport is one of the few in this area that does not have an alternative system to GPS to help planes land. If the signal is lost, it is impossible to land safely on the tarmac. The previous week, two Finnair flights, approaching Tartu, had to turn around at the last moment to return to Helsinki because they were not sure they might rely on their GPS.
Estonia quickly pointed an accusing finger at Russia. Moscow “knows perfectly well that interference with the GPS signal can prove dangerous for air traffic,” lamented Margus Tsahkna, Estonian Minister of Foreign Affairs, on Monday.
Russia has, in fact, been accused in recent days of being behind a surge in incidents linked to GPS signal interference in just under a year. Sweden even asked NATO to react. “Around 46,000 flights from the UK have recorded problems with their GPS over the Baltic Sea since last August,” explained the British daily The Guardian based on analyzes from the GPSJAM.org site.
Ancient techniques
Plane carrying British Defense Secretary Grant Schapps suffered GPS system failure over Kaliningrad, a Russian enclave between Poland and Lithuania, in March 2024.
L’European Aviation Safety Agency even organized a summit in January 2024 to discuss the increase in GPS-related incidents.
Read alsoNATO membership: the “feeling of increased vulnerability” pushed Finland over the edge
At issue: techniques which are nothing new. Russia is suspected of engaging in GPS jamming and “spoofing” of this signal on a large scale in the Baltic Sea and around the Gulf of Denmark.
“We have been able to jam the GPS signal since the beginning of the 1990s,” emphasizes Alexandre Vautravers, specialist in arms issues and editor-in-chief of the Swiss Military Review.
The most basic form of interference is “transmitting on the same frequency as GPS beacons, but with a stronger signal, to prevent the devices from obtaining the information transmitted from GPS satellites to calculate their position,” explains Alexandre Vautravers. This is the basics of jamming this navigation system.
The next step – also called “spoofing” – amounts to “manipulating radio signals in order to deceive the user regarding their location or time [l’autre information liée au GPS qui est un système de navigation et de chronométrage, NLDR] transmitted by satellites,” explains Tegg Westbrook, researcher at the University of Stavanger who worked on GPS interference techniques.
Rise in power since the start of the war in Ukraine
Russia has been accused of carrying out both types of attacks in the Baltic Sea region. This is not the first time that this part of Europe has experienced clashes via intermediary waves. “Since the 1970s, real electronic warfare took place there during the Cold War. The passage of the Gulf of Finland [de Saint-Pétersbourg à la mer Baltique, NDLR] has become a crossroads of very important geostrategic interests,” explains Alexandre Vautravers. This area experiences daily military exercises and maneuvers by both Russian and NATO forces.
Russia is particularly active in this area because “Russian authorities consider the Baltic States as an integral part of their historical sphere of influence. Moscow also did not appreciate that Estonia specializes in everything related to cybersecurity and has also decided to intensify its activities in the region since Finland’s accession to NATO. [en avril 2023, NDLR]”, summarizes David Stupples, specialist in navigation systems and radio signals at City University of London.
“With the war in Ukraine, practices like GPS jamming, which were already taking place before, have intensified,” specifies Tegg Westbrook. The European Union has also set up a mechanism to report incidents of electronic interference “which are then publicly accessible, thus raising awareness of the real scale of the phenomenon in the region,” adds this specialist.
The accusations once morest Russia also stem from the fact that one of its electronic warfare divisions – the Russians have less than ten – “is probably located in Kaliningrad. These units have several devices that allow signals to be jammed,” emphasizes David Stupples.
Watch out for Tobol?
Above all, the Kaliningrad region would be home to one of its ten “Tobol” military GPS jamming systems. This device, dubbed “Moscow’s secret weapon” by the Washington Postwas “used a lot by Russia at the start of the war of invasion in Ukraine”, notes Alexandre Vautravers.
Its advantage lies in its role as a Swiss army knife for electronic warfare: “Tobol is supposed to be able to be used for intensive GPS signal jamming and more sophisticated interference such as ‘spoofing’,” notes David Stupples. It would even enable what this expert calls “intelligent spoofing”.
The Baltic Jammer is in Kaliningrad.
5th proof, 3rd method.
This time with numbers on likelyhood. We just need a statistician to tell us how sure we are. Surely over 9000.@PajalaJussi computed how many radio horizons of first jammed plane intersect. Here, heatmapped. pic.twitter.com/9zMYvwtxQP
— Markus Jonsson (@auonsson) April 6, 2024
This is the ultimate in GPS signal interference. Simple falsification consists of “transmitting false data to the user instead of the real signal. “Intelligent spoofing” corresponds to a corruption of the original signal which has been intercepted and then modified,” explains David Stupples. In other words, it is much more difficult for the victim to realize the attack.
With Tobol installed in Kaliningrad – which Russia has never officially recognized – Moscow would be able to increase electronic warfare in the region.
Limited consequences
For the moment, and despite the warnings which have increased in recent weeks, the risk is still limited. Indeed, GPS jamming “is not going to lead to catastrophic consequences in most cases for air traffic,” says Tegg Westbrook. “Pilots do not rely solely on GPS and they have other tools to aid navigation,” explains David Stupples.
In fact, “it would really take very special circumstances, such as a night flight, in very bad weather conditions and with a very tired pilot for these interferences to lead to serious incidents,” explains Tegg Westbrook.
For this expert, “it is more regarding nuisances and demonstrations of know-how on the part of Russia”. “What you need to understand is that there are different levels of GPS and communications signal interference. Jamming and spoofing are the least severe disruptions,” notes David Stupples. Moscow reserves the possibility of going further.
‘Intelligent spoofing’, for example, would not only target the positioning system but also the transmission of precise time from these GPS satellites. The consequences of disruption might then be much more severe since critical infrastructures such as energy distribution networks, financial markets or even certain communication services rely on these clocks on board GPS satellites to synchronize. “Attacking the navigation system can therefore potentially trigger economic chaos,” concludes David Stupples.
Moving from GPS jamming to more severe interference would, in the opinion of all the experts interviewed, constitute a serious escalation of tensions between Russia and the West.
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