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GPS spoofing is a serious cybersecurity threat to passenger aircraft, with attacks causing aircraft to divert from course
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GPS spoofing linked to increased incidents in conflict zones, 400 percent increase in GPS data spoofing observed
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Experts blame Russia for GPS disruptions in Poland
Spoofing is a scam in which a hacker uses vulnerabilities in IT systems to impersonate another element of that system. The term is mainly associated with phone calls from fake bank employees. However, it is also used for more attacks of a different type, and GPS spoofing is becoming an increasing threat related to cybersecurity. This applies to passenger planes.
Photo: ronstik / Shutterstock Spoofing is a way to rob unsuspecting people
According to experts GPS spoofing has entered a new dimension: the ability to hack time. There has been a 400 percent increase in GPS spoofing in recent months, according to OPSGROUP, an aviation industry organization. Many of these incidents involve illegal ground-based GPS systems that transmit incorrect positions into local airspace to confuse incoming drones or missiles. Most attacks occur in conflict zones.
Passenger planes grounded, flights suspended, GPS spoofing causes confusion
“We overthink GPS as a source of position, but it’s actually a source of time,” Ken Munro, founder of Pen Test Partners, a British cybersecurity firm, told Reuters. “We’re starting to see reports of clocks on passenger planes doing weird things when spoofed,” he added.
Munro cited a recent incident in which a plane operated by a major Western airline had its clocks suddenly advanced by years, losing access to its digitally encrypted communications systems. The plane was grounded for several weeks.
In April, Finnair temporarily suspended flights to Tartu, Estonia’s second-largest city, due to GPS spoofing that Tallinn blamed on Moscow. GPS interference also occurs regularly in Poland. Experts have no major doubts and claim that this is the result of Russia’s actions.
Cybersecurity expert warns of ‘cascade of events’
GPS, or the Global Positioning System, has largely replaced expensive ground-based equipment that transmits radio beams to guide planes to land. GPS signals can be relatively easily blocked or distorted without expensive equipment or specialist knowledge, Reuters reports. Munro said such actions would not cause a plane crash.
“It’s just causing a little bit of confusion. There’s a risk that it’s going to start what we call a cascade of events, where something minor happens, something even more minor happens, and then something major happens,” the expert concluded.
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