What is GPS spoofing and why is it a concern for Indian airspace?

A committee has been established by the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) to keep an eye on GNSS (Global Navigation Satellite System) spoofing in Indian airspace. The DGCA office noted in an order published on Wednesday that the committee would look at several instances of GNSS interference, such as spoofing and jamming. Airlines travelling into and out of Indian airports as well as those flying over Indian airspace would provide data on such instances to the committee, reported the Times of India. The panel will suggest issuing advisories in light of this. The director of operations for the DGCA Ravinder Singh Jamwal will be in charge of the committee’s work. GPS spoofing An attempt to alter the initial location of a GPS-enabled device is known as GPS spoofing. To accomplish this, the attacker employs a radio transmitter that broadcasts phoney GPS signals and interferes with neighbouring GPS receivers. These devices consequently show false GPS locations, explained service provider NordVPN. Additionally, smartphone users have the option of spoofing their own GPS by downloading third-party apps that trick other apps into believing that the device is not at its original location. The GPS component GNSS is also used to synchronise date and time on devices all across the world. Captain Amit Singh, an air safety expert, told TOI that straying off in these areas is not safe. He said, “UM688 is a busy route. Most of the traffic from West Asia to Europe to US route from here. There are active conflict zones with military activity going on and so straying off the flight plan isn’t safe.” Not the same as GPS jamming Spoofing is completely different from jamming and much more dangerous. As the name suggests, jamming is when the GPS signals are interfered with, according to Deccan Herald. While planes and other aircraft frequently deal with jamming, spoofing like the recent instances in Iran is reportedly unheard of. Compared to GPS jamming, spoofing is more difficult to detect. The attacks GPS spoofing attacks have been mostly used in war because they are expensive because of their ability to make ships, planes, and vehicles appear to be somewhere else to confuse the opponent. Location spoofing is still used for this reason, although it is now available to common hackers. All they need is a cheap ($300 or less) portable radio signal transmitter with open-source software. The GPS determines your location using satellites in Earth orbit. One’s GPS-enabled device triangulates the location using radio signals that these GPS satellites are continuously transmitting. The issue is that by the time these radio signals get to your device, they are already quite faint. This means that a denial of service attack can be launched by any transmitter with a stronger signal. To put simply, the transmitter overwhelms the signals and causes your device to display any location it chooses. Why is that a concern? because any GPS gadget may be impacted. Rising incidents of GPS spoofing Instances of GPS spoofing involving commercial and airline aircraft over Iranian airspace have increased, according to a report by OPSGROUP, a flight data intelligence crowdsourcing website. The navigation systems of at least 20 passenger planes travelling over Iran over the past two weeks have been interfered with by phoney GPS signals. Boeing 777, 737, and 747 are among the aircraft that were deceived into deviating from their intended route by these erroneous signals originating from the ground, according to the study. The study claims that these signals defeated the aircraft’s in-built navigation system, which swiftly resulted in the loss of all navigational capabilities. Despite the fact that GPS signal interference has been around for more than ten years, this is the first occasion when civilian flights have been specifically targeted. Concerning the dangers of GPS spoofing and jamming in the area, the US Federal Aviation Administration has issued a warning. With inputs from agencies