The shipping industry has been aware of the threat of GPS spoofing for years, but one incident in 2017 pushed the issue higher up the global news agenda. In June of that year, at least 20 vessels in the Black Sea, in the vicinity of Novorossiysk Commercial Sea Port, reported that their automatic identification system (AIS) traces erroneously showed their position as Gelendzhik Airport, around 32km inland.
The large number of vessels involved and the fact that all of the ships’ tracking systems placed them in the same nonsensical location, led to informed speculation – still unconfirmed officially – that the incident could be attributed to Russian testing of satellite navigation spoofing technology as part of its electronic warfare arsenal.
“My gut feeling is that this is a test of a system which will be used in anger at some other time,” the UK Royal Institute of Navigation’s former president David Last told New Scientist in 2017.
Since then, there have been…
