In 2023, at least 20 civilian aircraft flying by way of the Center East had been misled by their onboard GPS items into flying close to Iranian airspace with out clearance—conditions that would have provoked a global incident. These planes had been victims of GPS spoofing, wherein misleading alerts from the bottom, disguised as reliable alerts from GPS satellites in orbit, trick an plane’s devices into reporting the plane’s location as someplace that it isn’t. Spoofing is a extra subtle tactic than GPS jamming, wherein malicious alerts overwhelm a focused GPS receiver till it could actually not perform.
Long theorized, GPS spoofing assaults have more and more cropped up in civilian airspace lately, prompting considerations about this new frontier in digital warfare. IEEE Spectrumspoke with Todd Humphreys of the College of Texas at Austin about how spoofing works and the way plane will be protected against it.
What’s an instance of a GPS spoofing assault?
Todd Humphreys: In 2017, we started to see spoofing assaults occurring within the Black Sea. As time progressed, the spoofing has solely gotten extra subtle and extra widespread. These days, if you happen to’re within the Jap Mediterranean, and also you’re on a flight sure for Turkey or Cyprus or Israel, it’s very likely that the GPS items in your plane will get spoofed. They are going to point out a place on the Beirut airport or in Cairo. And it’s as a result of Israel is sending out alerts that idiot GPS receivers for lots of of kilometers across the nation.
How can spoofing be detected?
Humphreys: It’s provable that you just can not, in all instances, detect spoofing. That’s as a result of GPS is a one-way system. It broadcasts alerts, but it surely doesn’t take any enter from the receivers. So there’s at all times the potential for any individual broadcasting a lookalike sign and fooling a receiver.
How can airways cut back the possibilities of their planes’ GPS items being spoofed?
Humphreys: There’s an antenna on the entrance of huge business plane, and within the aft additionally, there’s an antenna. Combining these collectively and analyzing the alerts from them would allow you to detect nearly all instances of spoofing.
So what’s the catch?
Humphreys: I spoke with Boeing about this a few years in the past. I mentioned, “Look, I’d wish to give you a manner of mixing the alerts from these two completely different antennas in order that you might extra readily detect spoofing.” And so they identified that it was essential for his or her programs that these antennas function totally independently as a result of they’re there for redundancy. They’re there for security causes.
Will the combat towards spoofing at all times be an arms race?
Humphreys: There’s usually a trade-off between conventional security on the one hand—and however, purposeful assaults from strategic adversaries. So it actually will depend on what you’re attempting to guard your self from. Is it that possibly considered one of your inside GPS antennas is simply going to spontaneously fail, which does occur? Or is it that your most urgent concern is being caught within the crossfire of a struggle zone and having your GPS receiver spoofed with out figuring out? Sadly, it’s robust to deal with each of those issues with the identical {hardware} on the identical time.
This text seems within the January 2025 challenge as “5 Questions for Todd Humphreys.”
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