Spotlight

BBC: Are drones the next target for hackers? February 2014

“If you were watching Iranian state TV in early December 2011, you would have seen an unusual flying object paraded in front of viewers. Windowless, squat, with a pointed nose, its two wings made it the shape of a manta ray. The trophy on show was an RQ-170 Sentinel stealth drone, a key weapon in the intelligence gathering arsenal of the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). Standing in a hangar on a military airfield, the drone was seemingly undamaged. Indeed, Iranian officials insisted that it had not been shot down; rather, they claimed an unusual coup: to have hacked the drone while it was flying near Iran’s border over Afghanistan and forced it to land.” 

Continue reading the BBC article that features an interview with Dr. Humphreys. 

Popular Mechanics: What If They Try to Hack Amazon’s Drones? December 2013

“Not everyone is thrilled with the rise of civilian drones in American skies. Last week, after Amazon hyped its plan to deliver packages in half an hour via UAV (unmanned aerial vehicle), we wondered about the drone backlash happening in many part of the U.S. And while an angry few threatened to shoot down these delivery drones, a more pressing concern seems to be: What if people try to hack them?”

Continue reading the Popular Mechanics article that features an interview with Dr. Humphreys.

Daily Post: 5 of the Most Interesting Scientific Discoveries Coming Out of Texas in 2013

“In a stunning display of engineering, students in the UT Department of Aerospace Engineering and Engineering Mechanics hacked a superyacht’s GPS system in the Mediterranean Sea. They veered the $80 million vessel off course, proving that such a feat could be performed using cutting-edge technology. In fact, the students not only sent false GPS signals to the yacht’s navigation system, they actually created the device that originated the misdirection.

Using a process called spoofing, the students subtly gained control of the 213-foot yacht and veered it off course a few degrees at a time. When the system attempted to correct the location, the ship’s crew unknowingly adjusted their position by pointing the ship toward the new—and incorrect—path. The tech-savvy pirates gained permission for the project, but proved that security should be strengthened for such vessels, including aircraft, that use similar systems on a daily basis all over the world. Next time, hackers might not ask for consent.”

Continue reading the article.

WAMC Academic Minute: GPS Hijacking, September 2013

“The answer was Yes. The question: Could you hijack my yacht? Now, the rest of the story: I had just finished telling a conference audience how we brought down an drone with a specialized attack against its GPS sensor. A distinguished-looking man with a British accent handed me his card. “I don’t suppose you could do the same with a 65-meter SuperYacht?””

Listen to the WAMC Northeast Public Radio Acadermic Minute interview with Dr. Humphreys.

NYT: Texas Law Gets Tough on Public, Private Drone Use, September 2013

“A hobbyist using a remote-control airplane mounted with a digital camera just happened to capture images last year of a Dallas creek running red with pig’s blood. It led to a nearby meatpacking plant being fined for illegal dumping and two of its leaders being indicted on water pollution charges.”

Continue reading the New York Times article that features an interview with Dr. Humphreys.

NPR TED Radio Hour: Will GPS Change Our Standards for Privacy?, September 2013

“Visions of the future don’t just have to come from science fiction. There’s very real technology today giving us clues about how our future lives might be transformed. So what might our future look like? And what does it take for an idea about the future to become a reality? In this hour, TED speakers make some bold predictions and explain how we might live in the future.”

Listen to the NPR Interview with Dr. Humphreys.

ACM: Plan B for Navigation

“Anyone who has used a Global Positioning System (GPS) navigator has seen the system’s ability to tell you precisely where you are — and, most likely, has faced frustration when the device just doesn’t work. Yet for the military — which uses GPS data for such mission-critical applications as target tracking, missile guidance, and simply getting around in foreign areas — GPS failure can be a matter of life or death. That’s why military researchers, such as those at the Air Force Institute of Technology (AFIT) at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base in Ohio, have long been exploring alternatives to the Global Positioning System.”

Continue reading a Communications of the ACM article that features an interview with Dr. Humphreys.

MIT Technology Review: “Spoofers” Use Fake GPS Signals to Knock a Yacht Off Course, August 2013

“University of Texas researchers recently tricked the navigation system of an $80 million yacht and sent the ship off course in an experiment that showed how any device with civilian GPS technology is vulnerable to a practice called spoofing.

Led by GPS expert Todd Humphreys, the researchers used a handheld device they built for about $2,000. It generates a fake GPS signal that appears identical to those sent out by the real GPS. The two signals reach the targeted system in perfect alignment. The strength of the fake signal slowly ratchets up and overtakes the real one.”

Continue reading the MIT Technology Review article.

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