India recorded 465 incidents of interference with aircraft navigation systems between November 2023 and February 2025, mostly in the border regions of Amritsar and Jammu, both near the Pakistan border.
GPS spoofing, which involves transmitting counterfeit signals to deceive Global Navigation Satellite Systems (GNSS) receivers, has become a significant threat to aviation safety both globally and within India. This interference leads to incorrect position, navigation, and timing data, compromising the reliability of aircraft navigation systems.
According to a September 2024 report by OPS Group, the most affected areas include northwest New Delhi and locations near Lahore (Pakkistan). Between July 15 and August 15, 2024, this region ranked ninth globally for spoofing incidents, impacting 316 aircraft.
Global Impact and Security Concerns
Reports indicate a 500% increase in spoofing incidents in 2024, with 70% of surveyed flight crew expressing serious concerns. The Eastern Mediterranean, Black Sea, and parts of Asia remain major hotspots, with over 1,000 flights affected in August 2024.
Pilots operating in affected regions have reported increasing instances of GPS jamming and spoofing. One pilot noted that after crossing the Iran-Pakistan border, interferences began and persisted until they cleared Turkish airspace.
Since the Gaza war began, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) have reportedly been using a tactic called GPS “spoofing,” which manipulates global positioning system signals to mislead enemy missiles, drones, and rockets that depend on GPS for targeting.
Israel’s GPS spoofing, primarily deployed as a defense mechanism against missile and drone attacks, has had significant unintentional consequences for civilian airlines operating in the region.
This tactic involves broadcasting false GPS signals to mislead navigation systems, a strategy that has intensified since the onset of the Gaza war in October 2023. While effective in disrupting enemy munitions, it has also affected commercial aviation across a wide region, including Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, Egypt, Turkey, and Cyprus.
The primary impact on civilian airlines is the disruption of navigation systems. Spoofed signals can cause aircraft instruments to misread their location, often making pilots believe they are over airports like Beirut or Cairo when they are not.
For instance, data from the OpenSky Network indicates that over 50,000 flights in the Middle East were affected in a single year. Pilots reported false readings that triggered erroneous alerts, such as warnings that the plane was too close to the ground. This has been particularly disruptive for airlines unfamiliar with the region, where pilots may not immediately recognize the spoofing.
Swiss International Air Lines, for example, has reported near-daily spoofing incidents over the Middle East, while a Turkish Airlines flight to Beirut in March 2024 had to return to Turkey after circling for 40 minutes due to navigation issues.
The broader implications include a reduction in safety margins. Automatic systems like collision avoidance and terrain warning, which depend on accurate GPS data, are often disabled during spoofing events, leaving pilots to navigate manually—a reversion to older, less precise methods.
Experts like Todd Humphreys from the University of Texas have noted that this “normalization of aberration” increases risk, especially in conflict zones where weather or operational demands might compound the challenge. In one reported case, a business jet nearly entered Iranian airspace without clearance due to spoofing, highlighting the potential for serious incidents.
Lebanon has formally complained to the United Nations, calling Israel’s actions a sovereignty violation with “dangerous consequences” for civilian aviation, reflecting the regional frustration with these disruptions.
A February 2024 article by retired Group Captain TP Srivastava, published in the EurAsian Times, highlights GPS spoofing as one of the biggest emerging threats to global civil aviation.
The report describes how GPS spoofing can mislead aircraft navigation systems without pilots realizing it, creating a false sense of location accuracy. He goes on to explain how GPS spoofing can prove catastrophic and even trigger a war. You can read the analysis here.
Counter-Measures Against Spoofing
Governments worldwide are implementing various measures to counter GPS spoofing.
In November 2023, India’s Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) issued a directive mandating immediate reporting of suspected spoofing events. Additionally, India is adopting guidelines from the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) and the European Union Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) to enhance aviation safety.
India has also published the National Aviation Safety Plan (NASP) 2024-2028, incorporating ICAO’s Standards and Recommended Practices (SARPs). This plan focuses on reducing operational safety risks, strengthening safety oversight capabilities, and improving air traffic management systems.
One of the primary defenses against spoofing is improving GPS signal security. Many countries and agencies are working on making GPS signals harder to fake.
Technological Solutions and Challenges
The U.S. military is developing M-Code, an encrypted GPS signal that prevents unauthorized entities from altering it. This signal is available only to U.S. and allied military forces.
Civilian aircraft are starting to use L5 signals, which are stronger and more resistant to interference than older signals. Some European Galileo satellites now offer Navigation Message Authentication (NMA), allowing receivers to verify whether the signal they receive is genuine.
Modern GPS receivers are also being designed to detect signal anomalies, helping pilots and systems recognize spoofed locations.
These receivers use multiple techniques to identify spoofing attempts. Time delay analysis checks whether a GPS signal arrives at an unusual time, which can indicate that it has been tampered with. Monitoring the angle of arrival determines whether a signal is coming from the expected direction.
Since authentic GPS signals come from satellites in space, any signals originating from the ground can be flagged as suspicious.
Multi-frequency GPS receivers use multiple GPS signals (such as L1, L2, and L5) to compare data from different sources and filter out fake signals. The U.S. military already equips its aircraft with SAASM (Selective Availability Anti-Spoofing Module), which uses encrypted GPS data to prevent spoofing.
Some potential solutions include developing Controlled Reception Pattern Antenna (CRPA) systems, encrypted signals, and restricted access to authorized services, all of which would make successful spoofing attempts significantly more difficult.
While these services do not eliminate the threat of GPS spoofing, they provide critical situational awareness, helping pilots and operators determine when GPS/GNSS data can be trusted and when alternative measures must be taken.
Despite these developments, existing countermeasures against GPS spoofing remain inadequate in fully protecting aviation from emerging threats. Addressing this challenge will require developing more resilient navigation and safety systems capable of withstanding such attacks.
As electronic warfare tactics evolve, aviation authorities worldwide are facing mounting pressure to counteract GPS spoofing before it leads to a catastrophic event.
- Via: ET Desk
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