Page 26: of Maritime Reporter Magazine (September 2013)

26 Maritime Reporter & Engineering News ? SEPTEMBER 2013 Spoof is deÞ ned as ?a hoax or swindle.? In the world of electronic networks, a spoof-ing attack is a situation in which one program successfully mas-querades as another by falsifying data and thereby gaining an improper ad-vantage. We have all heard of, and possibly fallen victim to, fraudulent card readers (often inserted on self-ser- vice fuel pumps). The fraudulent card readers copy security information from the credit card, which is then used to clone an illegitimate credit card and incur improper charges on the victim?s credit card account. Most spooÞ ng has a Þ nancial object, but that is not always the case.It is now possible to spoof Global Positioning System (GPS) and other space-based positioning, navigation, and timing (PNT) services. To date (as far as can be determined), intentional GPS spooÞ ng has been limited to re- search experiments to determine vul-nerability. Iranian of Þ cials, though, claim that they were able to acquire an American stealth surveillance drone in December 2011 by transmitting false signals to the drone. The claim is al- most certainly bogus, but impossible to totally disprove.The reason that PNT receivers, such as the GPS receiver found on almost every commercial vessel in the world, are susceptible to spooÞ ng is that the signal transmitted by the PNT satel- lite is of very low power. It does not take much in the way of power from a fraudulent transmitter to overcome that signal. The same is not true of a Loran signal, since it transmits at a much higher power level. Unfortu-nately, there only a few places in the world where the Loran system remains in operation. It is old technology, not as accurate or efÞ cient as space-based PNT systems, but much more dif Þ cult to spoof or jam.A GPS spoo Þ ng attack deceives a www.pennelusa.com [email protected]: 843-881-9026Manufacture of Engineered fabrics to protect man, equipment and environmentGOVERNMENT UPDATE GPS SpooÞ ngSimple annoyance or potential security threat? Dennis L. Bryant, Maritime Regulatroy Consulting, Gainsville, Fla.t: 352-692-5493e: [email protected] #9 (26-33).indd 26MR #9 (26-33).indd 269/3/2013 10:09:36 AM9/3/2013 10:09:36 AM