<
https://www.vice.com/en/article/m7bk3v/commercial-flights-are-experiencing-unthinkable-gps-attacks-and-nobody-knows-what-to-do>
"Commercial air crews are reporting something “unthinkable” in the skies above
the Middle East: novel “spoofing” attacks have caused navigation systems to
fail in dozens of incidents since September.
In late September, multiple commercial flights near Iran went astray after
navigation systems went blind. The planes first received spoofed GPS signals,
meaning signals designed to fool planes’ systems into thinking they are flying
miles away from their real location. One of the aircraft almost flew into
Iranian airspace without permission. Since then, air crews discussing the
problem online have said it’s only gotten worse, and experts are racing to
establish who is behind it.
OPSGROUP, an international group of pilots and flight technicians, sounded the
alarm about the incidents in September and began to collect data to share with
its members and the public. According to OPSGROUP, multiple commercial aircraft
in the Middle Eastern region have lost the ability to navigate after receiving
spoofed navigation signals for months. And it’s not just GPS—fallback
navigation systems are also corrupted, resulting in total failure.
According to OPSGROUP, the activity is centered in three regions: Baghdad,
Cairo, and Tel Aviv. The group has tracked more than 50 incidents in the last
five weeks, the group said in a November update, and identified three new and
distinct kinds of navigation spoofing incidents, with two arising since the
initial reports in September.
While GPS spoofing is not new, the specific vector of these new attacks was
previously “unthinkable,” according to OPSGROUP, which described them as
exposing a “fundamental flaw in avionics design.” The spoofing corrupts the
Inertial Reference System, a piece of equipment often described as the “brain”
of an aircraft that uses gyroscopes, accelerometers, and other tech to help
planes navigate. One expert
Motherboard spoke to said this was “highly
significant.”
“This immediately sounds unthinkable,” OPSGROUP said in its public post about
the incidents. “The IRS (Inertial Reference System) should be a standalone
system, unable to be spoofed. The idea that we could lose all on-board nav
capability, and have to ask [air traffic control] for our position and request
a heading, makes little sense at first glance— especially for state of the art
aircraft with the latest avionics. However, multiple reports confirm that this
has happened.”"
Via
The RISKS Digest Volume 33 Issue 95:
http://catless.ncl.ac.uk/Risks/33/95#subj1
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
