South Korea has revived a project to build a backup ship navigation system that would be difficult to hack after a recent wave of GPS signal jamming attacks it blamed on North Korea disrupted fishing vessel operations, officials say.
Global Positioning System (GPS) and other electronic navigation aids are vulnerable to signal loss from solar weather effects, radio and satellite interference and deliberate jamming.
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The latest jamming campaign from the North began on March 31, lasting nearly a week and affecting signal reception of more than 1,000 aircraft and 700 ships, originating from five locations along the border, South Korean officials said.
Aircraft traffic was not affected because the GPS system is normally used as a backup, not a primary navigation tool, one of the officials involved in telecommunications policy said.
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Part of the problem is that it’s not easy to detect a GPS outage caused by jamming.
“When GPS/GNSS (Global Navigation Satellite Systems) fail, transportation is impacted immediately. It slows down, becomes more dangerous, and every mode can carry less capacity,” said Dana Goward, president of the non-profit Resilient Navigation & Timing Foundation.
“As short-term backup clocks start to desynchronize with each other … cell phone towers start to fail, IT networks slow down or fail, financial systems are impacted, management of the electrical grid becomes problematic. That is the really scary part,” said Goward.
GPS vulnerability poses security and commercial risks, especially for ships whose crews are not familiar with traditional navigation techniques or using paper charts.
