Ships fooled in GPS spoofing attack suggest Russian cyberweapon

Re:Ships fooled in GPS spoofing attack suggest Russian cyber... by jhayward on Sunday August 13, 2017 @12:21PM (#15003482)

This is fairly old news. Reports are a year or two old and suggest that Russian security uses GPS spoofing anywhere V. Putin may be located, presumably as a defense against drone type attacks or surveillance. The spoofed location is often an airport. The black sea spoofing could be related to a visit to e.g., Sochi.

Alternatively Russia could be deploying the spoofers on ships now, which would seem to have offensive implications as well as defense.

(sorry, no links)

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Re:Ships fooled in GPS spoofing attack suggest Russian cyber... by ortusdux on Sunday August 13, 2017 @01:30PM (#15003871)

Here is a CNN report on it http://money.cnn.com/2016/12/02/technology/kremlin-gps-signa...

They spoof no-fly zones to trick the drones that abide by them. It's hard to image building or retrofitting a surveillance or weapon drone and leaving limiters in place.

I first heard about it on a running forum but I cannot find the link. Apparently, joggers were getting an extra 20 km on their runs because of the spoofing.

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Re:Ships fooled in GPS spoofing attack suggest Russian cyber... by omgtehlion on Sunday August 13, 2017 @01:27PM (#15003857)

Can attest this. Area near Kremlin is spoofed to Vnukovo airport for several years already. There were reports about putin's dacha spoofed to the nearest aiport too.

I really do not know about reasons and efficacy. Professional grade multi-gnss receivers can easily filter this crap out, at least they could 5 years ago...

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Re:Ships fooled in GPS spoofing attack suggest Russian cyber... by joering2 on Sunday August 13, 2017 @02:49PM (#15004293)

But is it only Kremlin spoofing? I been to wisit DC/White House hoods many time and every time I had problem using google or apple maps. Signal was all over the place.

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Re:Ships fooled in GPS spoofing attack suggest Russian cyber... by codedokode on Sunday August 13, 2017 @02:28PM (#15004176)

It is probably made against civilian drones. Otherwise there would be a lot of people flying over Kremlin just for fun and annoying security guards.

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Re:Ships fooled in GPS spoofing attack suggest Russian cyber... by roywiggins on Sunday August 13, 2017 @12:48PM (#15003641)

Sounds like a semi-reliable Putin Detector could be set up if you wanted to...

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Re:Ships fooled in GPS spoofing attack suggest Russian cyber... by adrianratnapala on Sunday August 13, 2017 @03:37PM (#15004511)

Yes, but the opponent will only see a largish region, probably [a few 1000 km big UPDATE: from other comments here, it seems the region can be much smaller], where the GPS is off and the opponent would usually already know his location to that precision.

Still it might be a worth-while excersise for the NSA -- not so they can target Putin. But to provide one more signal for when he makes some unexpected, hush-hush trip to some central Asian republic or some-such.

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Re:Ships fooled in GPS spoofing attack suggest Russian cyber... by jhayward on Sunday August 13, 2017 @12:55PM (#15003689)

It would also be fairly short-lived in battle, since the spoofer is broadcasting its own location in a highly accurate "place ordnance here" manner.

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Re:Ships fooled in GPS spoofing attack suggest Russian cyber... by subway on Sunday August 13, 2017 @02:30PM (#15004194)

More likely it is broadcasting the position of the satellite it is spoofing, with altered timing.

edit: that doesn't prevent other means of locating the source of an rf signal

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Re:Ships fooled in GPS spoofing attack suggest Russian cyber... by jhayward on Sunday August 13, 2017 @06:14PM (#15005250)

You can't spoof the encrypted signal by simulating a satellite, you have to capture the real signal and rebroadcast it as an overpowering signal so targets can't get the direct broadcast at their location.

This means that everyone who is getting the overpowered signal will compute the same location, which will be the antenna of the spoofer.

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Re:Ships fooled in GPS spoofing attack suggest Russian cyber... by delinka on Sunday August 13, 2017 @12:59PM (#15003706)

Let's think through that. In order to spoof GPS, you need to overpower the true GPS signal with your own. You put some transmitters in a location, and anyone attempting to get a GPS fix while in that location gets spoofed data and the wrong location.

Now, if you're close enough to get the spoofed signal, you're close enough to see Putin's entourage and know he's probably nearby. If you're not close, you don't get spoofed. So I'm uncertain of the utility of this Putin Detector.

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Re:Ships fooled in GPS spoofing attack suggest Russian cyber... by seiferteric on Sunday August 13, 2017 @02:54PM (#15004315)

GPS signal is very weak, it would not take much to overpower the signal from a good distance I think.

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