Spotlight

Austin, TX — Members of the Radionavigation Laboratory briefed visitors from the DHS, USCG, NSWC, JNWC, and USSTRATCOM on several aspects of GPS security and integrity including: effects of GPS spoofing on power grid monitoring, anti-spoofing techniques for civil GPS, and GPS interference detection and localization techniques.

Meeting Agenda and Participants 

• Introductory Remarks, Todd Humphreys
• Thoughts on GPS Security and Integrity, Todd Humphreys
• Characterization of Receiver Response to a Spoofing Attack with video, Daniel Shepard
• Navigation Message Authentication for Civil GPS Anti-Spoofing, Kyle Wesson
• GPS Interference Detection and Localization, Jahshan Bhatti

“Signals from GPS satellites now help you to call your mother, power your home, and even land your plane—but a cheap plastic box can jam it all.”

Continue reading the NewScientist article, which features a discussion with Dr. Humphreys on GPS spoofing in the “Faking It” section. 

Austin, TX — Members of the Radionavigation Laboratory launched a memorial page for Dr. Paul M. Kintner, Jr. along with Paul’s receiver, a continuously operating receiver in the spirit of an eternal flame. We started Paul’s receiver running this month. We intend to keep it going as long as we can.

More tributes to Paul are welcome; please submit them to Todd Humphreys.

Austin, TX — Members of the Radionavigation Laboratory went on a full day excursion to capture simultaneous GPS and Cellular CDMA spectrum via the lab’s powerful National Instruments radio frequency signal analyzers. Over 1.5 TB of spectral data were recorded at 37.5 MSps with the goal of characterizing dynamic GPS multipath, exploring tightly-coupled opportunistic navigation, and evaluating GPS jamming mitigation techniques. The data log files are available here for download. Interested parties can request this data for their own post processing needs.For a visual representation of the multipath encounterd, the data can be plotted in Google maps/earth. To see the visuals:1) go to the test listing.2) copy the “http:.// … .kml?rand=99” URL of the test to map3) open Google maps and paste the URL in the search bar

“GPS timing signals that control the base stations in some cellular networks and other gadgets the size of small refrigerators that power the smart electric grid can fall prey to sophisticated spoofing attacks, according to a University of Texas researcher. Todd Humphreys, an assistant professor at the University of Texas Radionavigation Laboratory, said he successfully spoofed a type of laboratory time reference receiver of the code division multiple access network technology Sprint and Verizon use that relies on GPS time—with a transmitter he built for about $1,000.”

Continue reading the Nextgov article.

“Here’s a story to send a shiver down the spine of anyone who relies on their GPS sat nav or mobile. Scientists at Cornell University have managed to trick a GPS receiver into accepting signals from rogue transmitters instead of the genuine orbiting satellites.”

Continue reading the TechRadar article.

“A paper presented by Cornell University and Virginia Tech researchers at this year’s ION GNSS conference on the possibility of spoofing GPS has garnered mainstream attention.”

Continue reading the GPS World article.

“Just like flat-screen televisions, cell phones and computers, global positioning system (GPS) technology is becoming something people can’t imagine living without. So if such a ubiquitous system were to come under attack, would we be ready?”

Continue reading the ScienceDaily article

“With millions of GPS-based navigation devices on the road today, it is time someone considered the question: What if there’s an attack on the GPS network itself?”

Continue reading the WIRED Gadget Lab article.

“Computers have been hacked for decades. But now, scientists at Cornell University and Virginia Tech are now warning about the dangers of “spoofing,” or hacking into the Global Positioning System (GPS) that controls everything from car navigation to national power grids.”

Continue reading the Discovery News article.