In the first four months of 2024 alone, over 55,000 GPS spoofing incidents were recorded around the world, according to data seen by Arabian Business, crippling everything from aviation and maritime operations to telecoms and power grid networks that rely on precise timing and location data.
The Middle East region experienced a shocking 43,000 of these disruptive events aimed at falsifying satellite navigation signals.
GPS spoofing and jamming incidents surge globally
Beirut Airport saw a staggering 27,733 spoofing incidents so far this year – the highest of any location globally. Cairo Airport followed closely behind with 14,512 incidents in that same period.
These aren’t mere statistical curiosities. As Ezzeldin Hussein, Regional Senior Director of Solution Engineering at cybersecurity firm SentinelOne, explained, “GPS spoofing poses significant dangers due to its potential to disrupt critical systems and undermine trust in GPS-based technologies.”
The risks are severe. “Spoofed GPS signals can lead to navigation errors, causing vehicles, ships, or aircraft to deviate from their intended routes and potentially endangering lives and property,” Hussein added. Timing synchronisation errors from spoofing could trigger cascading failures in power grids, telecommunications networks, and financial systems.
“Spoofing attacks targeting these systems can disrupt operations, leading to service outages, financial losses, and even cascading failures,” Hussein warned.
While overshadowed by concerns like cyber warfare, the crude technique of GPS jamming – blasting radio signals to degrade navigation data – also remains a potent threat.
“This is becoming a massive challenge and danger, especially for commercial airlines,” said Abishur Prakash, founder of The Geopolitical Business Inc., a geopolitical risk firm. “Countries are jamming GPS systems, in order to confuse planes.”
In March, a plane carrying UK Defense Minister Grant Shapps was forced to turn back after experiencing satellite signal jamming near Russian territory. A recent advisory from the UK’s Civil Aviation Authority outlined how degraded GPS data puts airliners at risk, including inaccurate terrain warnings and systematic failures.
Between January and April this year, over 55,000 GPS spoofing incidents were recorded globally, according to data obtained by Arabian Business from SkAI Data Services, the Zurich University of Applied Sciences, and the OpenSky Network. The Middle East region experienced a major spike, suffering 43,000 of these disruptive events in just the first third of 2024. Simply tracking SkAI Data Services’ real-time GPS spoofing platform will show hundreds of incidents happening within 24 to 72 hours every day.
While military GPS jamming aims to degrade battlefield communications, the collateral impacts increasingly disrupt civilian activities. A Financial Times report revealed some 40 million people who rely on GPS for ride-sharing, food delivery, and dating apps have been impacted as such services became unreliable due to spoofing and jamming incidents.
GPS disruption tech spreads from military to violent non-state groups
The rapid proliferation of this threat is a case study in the diffusion of dual-use technologies. As Dr. Yannick Veilleux-Lepage, a political scientist at the Royal Military College of Canada, explained, “When we are talking about new technologies, whether it’s on the battlefield or elsewhere, we need to make a distinction between innovators and adopters.”
“The innovators are the people that design, fund, and come about with a new technology,” Veilleux-Lepage said, pointing to military R&D agencies like DARPA as prime instigators of GPS spoofing capabilities. “The adopters are the people who down the line will start using this new technology.”
Initially, such disruptive systems were confined to major military powers. But Veilleux-Lepage noted, “What we are seeing is that these technologies are rapidly becoming more accessible. They’re smaller, they cost less, they are open source, they are easier to use, and as a result, what we see is that there are more and more adopters that can enter this space.”
He pointed to the analogy of armed drones, which transitioned from an exclusively military capability to being weaponised by “violent non-state groups” like Hezbollah and ISIS. “Just like 10 years ago a commercial drone would have been very unlikely to be seen on the battlefield…and now it’s everywhere,” Veilleux-Lepage said. “So I think this is the dynamic that we’re seeing happening here.”
While major powers like the US possess backup navigation systems and jam-resistant technologies, Peter Singer, a renowned warfare expert at Arizona State University, highlighted that “the bigger danger is how much of the civilian world also now depends on [GPS], which makes Russia’s recent interference with it across Northern Europe so dangerous.”
According to Prakash, “this is part of what the US is experimenting with, allowing AI to navigate planes instead of relying on GPS. This is also the core of the Ukrainian drones, who are using machine vision to navigate Russia.”
However, empowering autonomous systems with tactics like spoofing creates new risks. “If AI is in charge of navigation, then it has to also have the control to adapt and respond to changing environments without human input,” Prakash said. “If satellites are down or GPS is being jammed, it is up to AI to drive tanks or planes or direct soldiers. And this will require AI to have the right to engage targets to a certain degree.”
While potentially mitigating some tactical vulnerabilities, the alternative of ceding navigation to AI systems could open a Pandora’s box of volatile machine autonomy and unclear human control.
As cybersecurity expert Hussein outlined, protecting infrastructure and transportation against these escalating GPS disruption threats requires multi-layered defenses – from cybersecurity to backup navigation sources. “Implementing techniques to authenticate and verify the integrity of received GPS signals can help detect spoofing attempts,” he said, suggesting cryptography and signal analysis.
Hussein also recommended “deploying redundant navigation systems, such as inertial navigation systems, radar-based navigation, or ground-based augmentation systems, to provide backup navigation capabilities in case of GPS disruptions.”
While crucial, he acknowledged that “implementing these safeguards is challenging due to various factors” like costs, technical complexity, and maintaining security against evolving threats.
As civilian systems become collateral damage in a less regulated space of GPS disruption tactics, the threats of spoofing and jamming – once confined to science fiction and military phantasms – now loom over all of us reliant on orbiting navigation signals. Defending these vulnerable global utilities presents an escalating test of human ingenuity and restraint in the years ahead.
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