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Aircraft lose control of time and communication.
The recent surge in cases of GPS spoofing-a digital attack that can knock commercial aircraft off course-has taken on a new, more disturbing form. Cybersecurity researchers note that attackers are now able to interfere not only with navigation, but also with the operation of time-related systems.
According to the aviation advisory group OPSGROUP, the number of cases of GPS spoofing affecting commercial airliners has increased by 400% in recent months. Most of these occur near conflict zones, where illegal ground-based systems are used to transmit false coordinates into the airspace to confuse drones and missiles.
Usually GPS is perceived as a source of coordinates, but it is important to remember that this system is also an important source of accurate time. At the DEF CON conference in Las Vegas, Ken Munro, founder of the British company Pen Test Partners, noted that during spoofing, anomalies in the operation of clocks on board aircraft began to be recorded. In one of the recent cases reported by Munro, the clock on board one of the Western airliners suddenly "jumped" several years ahead, which led to the loss of communication with encrypted communication channels. As a result, the aircraft was taken out of service for several weeks until engineers manually restored its systems.
GPS has long replaced expensive ground-based devices that transmit radio signals to guide aircraft to land. However, it is relatively easy to block or distort the GPS signal — this requires inexpensive equipment and minimal technical knowledge.
While such attacks are unlikely to cause a plane crash, they can create confusion on board. This, in turn, can trigger a chain of events that can go from minor to serious incidents.
Source
The recent surge in cases of GPS spoofing-a digital attack that can knock commercial aircraft off course-has taken on a new, more disturbing form. Cybersecurity researchers note that attackers are now able to interfere not only with navigation, but also with the operation of time-related systems.
According to the aviation advisory group OPSGROUP, the number of cases of GPS spoofing affecting commercial airliners has increased by 400% in recent months. Most of these occur near conflict zones, where illegal ground-based systems are used to transmit false coordinates into the airspace to confuse drones and missiles.
Usually GPS is perceived as a source of coordinates, but it is important to remember that this system is also an important source of accurate time. At the DEF CON conference in Las Vegas, Ken Munro, founder of the British company Pen Test Partners, noted that during spoofing, anomalies in the operation of clocks on board aircraft began to be recorded. In one of the recent cases reported by Munro, the clock on board one of the Western airliners suddenly "jumped" several years ahead, which led to the loss of communication with encrypted communication channels. As a result, the aircraft was taken out of service for several weeks until engineers manually restored its systems.
GPS has long replaced expensive ground-based devices that transmit radio signals to guide aircraft to land. However, it is relatively easy to block or distort the GPS signal — this requires inexpensive equipment and minimal technical knowledge.
While such attacks are unlikely to cause a plane crash, they can create confusion on board. This, in turn, can trigger a chain of events that can go from minor to serious incidents.
Source
