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Report deems Russia a pioneer in GPS spoofing attacks

zdnet.com

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Re: Report deems Russia a pioneer in GPS spoofing attacks

#51

Post by mistermann »

igivanov wrote: post #49
mistermann wrote: post #41

Am I the only one that finds it odd how people read and accept this capability without question, yet don't give the slightest thought to why super sophisticated Russian* state-sponsored Twitter trolls didn't bother to use a VPN to spoof their identities? * So the media claims as a fact. Twitter itself has actually made no such claim of certainty that the "Russian trolls" are actually Russian, rather they've only said…

>people read and accept this capability without question These days most negative statements about Russia are accepted at face value.

Of course, and this is to be expected considering the intelligence and human nature of the general public. But the behavior/beliefs on this specific topic (at least) of people on relatively much smarter forums like HN is identical to that of the general public.

Here we have a situation where people of above-average intelligence, especially technically, passionately believe something of a technical nature, and will not question it. That's the part I find absolutely fascinating within the context of the whole "fake news" discussion.

Re: Report deems Russia a pioneer in GPS spoofing attacks

#52

Post by atemerev »

jhayward wrote: post #23
atemerev wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

GPS time is monotonously increasing. If you ignore all messages with timestamps lower than the last one received, and check their digital signatures, you should be protected against replay attacks at least until the next cold restart (or GPS time counter reset, which is once in 20 years). There are other possibilities (CTR/CFB encryption modes, relying on increasing counter and/or previous messages contents). Or am I…

TLDR: you essentially never see repeated time stamps. GPS time is broadcast in the very low bit rate (50 BPS) NAV message, once every 6 seconds. In between the receiver counts at the chip rate (1023 kHz) just counting signal transitions. A rebroadcast attack happens at the speed of light. A signal is received at Moscow airport and is beamed to the Kremlin via some alternate transport path. At the Kremlin the signal i…

Makes sense, thank you. I will think more about the problem.

Re: Report deems Russia a pioneer in GPS spoofing attacks

#53

Post by vbezhenar »

huhwatnow wrote: post #46

Time to update the odds that the two accidents involving navy destroyers in the Malaga straits, weren't ? Mind you this does not automatically implicate Russia, just because one report calls them pioneers doesn't mean other countries don't posses the capability and China has more concrete issues with US naval presence there than Russia.

It would be crazy to operate ships solely with GPS data.

Re: Report deems Russia a pioneer in GPS spoofing attacks

#54

Post by huhwatnow »

vbezhenar wrote: post #53
huhwatnow wrote: post #46

Time to update the odds that the two accidents involving navy destroyers in the Malaga straits, weren't ? Mind you this does not automatically implicate Russia, just because one report calls them pioneers doesn't mean other countries don't posses the capability and China has more concrete issues with US naval presence there than Russia.

It would be crazy to operate ships solely with GPS data.

I'm sure the navy is aware of the threat and has standing procedures to prevent it - afaic high-ranking officers were sacked precisely because those weren't being properly followed. A huge container ship in a space as tight as the Malaga strait otoh probably has no procedure to deal with GPS being abruptly and subtly spoofed or even a way to detect it.

Re: Report deems Russia a pioneer in GPS spoofing attacks

#55

Post by Causality1 »

atemerev wrote: post #15
Causality1 wrote: post #10

One thing the Manning leaks taught me is that if it can be done, it is being done. GPS spoofing is demonstrably effective at a variety of tasks including straight-up stealing military drones, therefore it is being done across the globe.

Aren't military drones using the military GPS profile with encrypted messages? Those cannot be easily spoofed, AFAIK.

Iran has already used GPS spoofing to force American drones to land or crash onto Iranian territory to be claimed and reverse-engineered.

Re: Report deems Russia a pioneer in GPS spoofing attacks

#56

Post by angott »

zw123456 wrote: post #38

If I understand it correctly, the spoofing works by replaying the original signal delayed in time but at a higher power so the receiver selects your better spoofed signal. I wonder if it would be possible for the receiver to compute what the appropriate signal level should be and if it is too strong that could be a way of detecting if you are receiving a spoofed signal ?

You could technically do this, but such a technology is too expensive to incorporate in civilian use receivers that have to retail for a couple bucks.

Military receivers used by the USA and NATO allies can easily detect spoofing because they listen for signals on separate frequencies reserved for military use, with higher precision. On these frequencies, all traffic is encrypted using a private key that only the DoD has access to (in theory). In this case, it is easy to detect spoofing because your enemy cannot encrypt signals using the DoD's private key (they just don't have it). If the receiver is unable to decrypt the incoming signal (key mismatch), it knows there is something fishy going on. I would also speculate there are additional countermeasures which are not publicly available.

Re: Report deems Russia a pioneer in GPS spoofing attacks

#57

Post by pps43 »

wongarsu wrote: post #34
ohadron wrote: post #25

Wouldn't it be possible to mitigate some of the effect of these spoofers using on-board navigation system with an IMU? Or it least allow for it's detection?

It depends on what you are doing. ICBMs predate GPS, so for anything flying you can fall back to the old way of comparing terrain height to known maps. This is reliable and a widely-implemented technique (at least in weaponry). If that's not an option you can use an IMU, but because of errors adding up over time IMUs aren't all that great if you can't calibrate from time to time. Satellites do it by looking at stars,…

ICBMs don't compare terrain height, they use a combination of gyroscopes and telescopes instead. Cruise missiles can follow the terrain.

Re: Report deems Russia a pioneer in GPS spoofing attacks

#59

Post by jandrewrogers »

huhwatnow wrote: post #46

Time to update the odds that the two accidents involving navy destroyers in the Malaga straits, weren't ? Mind you this does not automatically implicate Russia, just because one report calls them pioneers doesn't mean other countries don't posses the capability and China has more concrete issues with US naval presence there than Russia.

This does not follow. The US Navy uses very high-precision inertial navigation systems, networks of them embedded throughout the ship and measuring position independently in fact (think wisdom of crowds). External corrections are only accepted within the very small aggregate drift error. Spoofing GPS will do almost nothing to a US Navy ship, that isn't how they navigate. Hanlon's Razor applies.

The US military is very, very good at exotic inertial measurement technology, doubly so for a platform like a ship with few power/weight limitations. It is a cornerstone of their technology advantage.

Re: Report deems Russia a pioneer in GPS spoofing attacks

#60

Post by blackflame7000 »

wongarsu wrote: post #33
ccnafr wrote: post #3

To be fair, the report is authored by an US entity. I'm sure if they could have studied US operations without losing their funding they would have found similar deployments by US forces, albeit, I think not as widespread. The US has always seemed to have better tech, and GPS spoofing is cheap, from what the article states, which makes it ideal for the cash-bootstrapped Russian military.

> The US has always seemed to have better tech While the US can spend a lot more on its military and has a corresponding lead, the US is mostly focused on offensive technology (like its carrier groups). Russia, being geographically much closer to "enemy" territory, has a much bigger focus on defensive capabilities and excels in many areas. For example the Russian S400 air defense system is usually seen as superior to…

S400 is no where near as good as our Aegis system. I know because I worked on it. The patriot missile did have some spectacular fails though where an anti-missile became confused and shot right into the ground

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=YS4i2InVB-Y

Although I will give the Russians props for possibly being the first nation to land the missile back in its own tube. https://youtu.be/gNNkRuSw_0Q?t=52

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