Recent fatal accidents involving two vessels in the U.S. Seventh Fleet led to a spate of speculation about whether somehow the navigation in these ships was compromised by a cyber intrusion. Global Positioning System (GPS) spoofing has been highlighted as a possible contributing factor. While investigations are still underway to determine the cause for each of the Naval mishaps, there have been incidences of GPS “spoofing” against commercial shipping and targeting other nation’s vessels. The Navy does have secure, encrypted GPS, but spoofing could still be a possibility.
A recent example of GPS spoofing occurred when 20 commercial ships navigating in the Black Sea began to show inaccurate locations. While all the details regarding this incident are not publicly available, it appears that this was a case of sending inaccurate signals that caused the receiver to then display false information. In April 2016, South Korea reported that 280 fishing ships had to return to port after their GPS systems were jammed allegedly by North Korea. The UK ran its own tests, aiming a jammer operating from a lighthouse that resulted in the targeted ships’ GPS providing false positions.
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