Spotlight – Page 12 – Radionavigation Laboratory

GPS And Navy Collisions: Still Undecided

The US Navy is still investigating the causes behind the two US Navy collisions in the past two months. Many theories have been put forth, including GPS spoofing or jamming. Experts suggest that it is highly unlikely, but not impossible.

GPS spoofing and jamming attacks are possible and have been demonstrated. GPS attacks likely caused ship navigation malfunctions in the Black Sea this summer where many ships suddenly reported that they were located inland Russia. Professor Todd Humphreys of the University of Texas successfully demonstrated such an attack in 2013 when he and his group of graduate students hijacked the navigation of a state-of-the-art yacht.

With regard to the US Navy ships, Professor Humphreys believes that the evidence is not indicative of GPS spoofing. Read the full article featuring Professor Humphreys.

Potential GPS Spoofing: US Navy Collision

An oil tanker collided with the USS John S. McCain near Singapore this week, injuring five sailors, starting a search for ten more missing sailors, and sparking concerns about potential GPS foul-play.

“There’s something more than just human error going on,” says Jeff Stutzman, a chief intelligence officer. “Statistically, it looks very suspicious,” Dr. Humphreys chimes in. GPS spoofing has been on the rise lately, affecting ships in the Black Sea last month.

As fully autonomous ships come online and our reliance on global shipping trade increases, concerns regarding the security of onboard electronic systems are on the rise. “It would be mayhem if the right team came in [the English Channel] and decided to do a spoofing attack.”

Read the full McClatchy article featuring Dr. Humphreys.

GPS Spoofing Misguides Black Sea Ships

Black Sea shipping is the latest target of GPS spoofing, according to captains of these ships in late June of this year. The GPS receivers aboard the ships began to act erratically, reporting that the ships were on land or too far out at sea.

Dr. Humphreys says the evidence indicates that this wasn’t a case of signal jamming, rather it was a deliberate attack that falsifies GPS signals to misguide ships. Dr. Humphreys demonstrated in 2013 that this attack is legitimate and viable when he and his team used it to control a state-of-the-art yacht.

“We’ve become so dependent on GPS that we have let the other systems atrophy”, Dr. Humphreys warns. While there are ways to detect spoofing, we must not forget the other tools we have available and rely solely on GPS.

Listen to the five minute long podcast segment with Dr. Humphreys starting at 19:15.

Ships fooled in GPS spoofing attack suggest Russian cyberweapon

In June of this year, reports surfaced of ships in the Black Sea experiencing problems with their satellite navigation. Their GPS receivers told them they were somewhere they weren’t – something known as GPS spoofing.

Dr. Humphreys has long warned of the dangers of GPS spoofing. In 2013, he and his team performed a test of spoofing on a state-of-the-art yacht. According to Humphreys, these ships experienced the same thing, only this time it was not being done by researchers, but rather by a government entity.

Speaking to New Scientist, Dr. Humphreys said that “[GPS spoofing] affects safety-of-life operations over a large area. In congested waters with poor weather, such as the English Channel, it would likely cause great confusion, and probably collisions.”

Read the full article here.

Hackers Will Soon Be Trying to Send Your Driverless Car Off a Cliff

After a recent spoofing incident perpetrated by the Kremlin, the dangers of sensor spoofing for autonomous cars feels more real than ever. Dr. Humphreys spoke with Inverse about the vulnerabilities of autonomous cars and the threat of GPS spoofing. “Everybody’s primary fear is they’re traveling down the road in an autonomous car here and somehow hacks them remotely and takes them off to some far-off place and locks the door”, said Dr. Humphreys. The Radionavigation Lab is hard at work to develop countermeasures to these problems, such as improving cryptography and developing better signal-detection detectors.

Read the full article here.

Students Lakshay Narula and Matthew Murrian Receive Qualcomm Innovation Fellowships

Two of Dr. Humphreys’ students, Lakshay Narula and Matthew Murrian, were one of only eight teams chosen for the Qualcomm Innovation Fellowship for 2017. Their project focuses on localizing pedestrians and cyclists to within half a meter, enabling self-driving vehicles to safely navigate with confidence. Their approach uses precise GNSS developed by Dr. Humphreys’ lab in conjunction with other sensing modalities, including an Inertial Measurement Unit (IMU) and a visible-light camera.

Read more here. Congratulations to Lakshay and Matthew!

Human vs. Drone Combat Is the New Normal

Today, unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) are no match for manned fighter pilots. US human pilots have shot down two of them this month alone. However, this could change. Speaking to Motherboard, the tech arm of Vice News, Dr. Todd Humphreys predicted that “UAVs will eventually achieve superiority” due to their ability to “pull G’s far beyond what a human can withstand”.

This transition could happen within the next 20 years, according to Dr. Humphreys. Read the full article here.

Here Come the Drones – And Their Security Loopholes

The rise of autonomous drones for commercial use promises new and exciting possibilities, but the threat of these drones being compromised by an attacker still looms. As more and more companies begin sending more and more drones into the skies, the question of security must be seriously examined.

According to Dr. Humphreys, commercial drones remain “very hackable”, with a number of attack vectors available. Read the full article here.

Getting lost near the Kremlin? Russia could be ‘GPS spoofing’

Earlier this year, reports started to surface on Russian media of a strange phenomenon. In certain areas of central Moscow, mostly within sight of the Kremlin walls, satellite signals were scrambled. Instead of showing true locations, people’s phones were showing them almost 20 miles away at Vnukovo airport.

Dr. Humphreys spoke with CNN about the reported GPS spoofing occurring near the Kremlin. Read the full article here.

GPS World: Low-cost precise positioning for automated vehicles

GPS World recently featured a paper authored by Dr. Humphreys and students from the Radionavigation Lab. The paper discusses the details of low-cost precise positioning, particularly in regards to autonomous driving.

In order to achieve this level of precision, a dense reference network is required. The paper outlines the implementation of RNL’s own network, the Longhorn Reference Network. The paper also includes a demonstration of precise positioning being used for lane-keeping in autonomous vehicles.

Read the full paper here.