GPS Vulnerability Articles

Download full article.

Link to GPSWorld article online.

The most widely used of all GPS devices are in-car navigators. When vehicles carrying navigators are used for criminal purposes, records contained in the devices may be examined. Such investigations rely on newly developed forensic techniques that employ a combination of computer expertise and navigation knowledge, yielding valuable data for crime investigators.

...

The use of GPS jammers, long foreseen in navigation circles, has become a reality as criminals employ them to overcome tracking systems and steal vehicles. These low-powered transmitters (see photo), readily available over the Internet for as little as $150, can block GPS reception in a vehicle's vicinity.

...

Recently, much more powerful jammers have appeared on the market (see adjacent photo). These radiate approximately two watts on each frequency, a power level some 20,000 times greater than the low-power jammer - and more powerful than the transmitter employed recently in official UK tests of effects on shipping of jamming GPS over a sector of the North Sea up to 30 kilometers from the jammer. A two-watt jammer could interfere over a substantial area.

...

The jammers presented here are relatively simple and crude, but highly effective in preventing the operation of civil GPS receivers. They are readily available and are certainly being sold and being used. They render our GNSS-based security systems vulnerable to attack.

...

Conclusions
Legal and forensic aspects of GNSS grow ever more important, and their role more vital and successful in reducing crime. We must plan our responses to the vulnerability of our current and future GNSS-based security systems, which are now under attack. We must recognize these threats and encourage open and full discussion of them and of solutions to the dangers they pose.