Airlines have reported a spate of “spoofing or jamming” the Global Navigation Satellite Systems (GNSSs) on aircraft in the past two years, according to Iata
Nick Careen, Iata senior vice-president for operations, safety and security, noted “increasing reports of the spoofing or jamming of GNSS signals impacting aircraft systems”, saying there had been impacts on “numerous airline operations”.
He displayed a map showing most of the interference to be around the Black Sea and over Turkey, suggesting it is linked to the war in Ukraine, and said: “GNSS spoofing and jamming is high right now and has been for a couple of years.”
Careen explained: “Jamming is not done to attack. It’s done to protect an asset on the ground. It’s a by-product of war games, essentially.”
He reported Iata is in talks with equipment manufacturers “to increase the resilience of GNSS equipment”.
GNSS systems enable communications and navigation on aircraft. Jamming involves interference to block communications and positional information. Spoofing involves broadcasting fake GNSS signals or genuine signals captured elsewhere or at a different time.
Careen also noted Iata introduced update cybersecurity standards for members last year, with jurisdictions including the EU, UK and US putting regulations in place and the International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO) putting together cybersecurity standards.
He said: “The cyber-attack risk [to aircraft] remains low, but it’s evolving. It is something we can’t take for granted.”