Iranian engineer hijack U.S. drone by GPS hack [Video Explanation]
Dec 17, 2011
An Iranian engineer working on the captured US drone has said that Iran exploited a weakness in the craft's navigation system to hijack it. The aircraft was downed through a relatively unsophisticated cyber-attack that tricked its global positioning systems (GPS). The technique, known as " GPS spoofing " has been around for several years, and the Iranians began studying it in 2007, the engineer reportedly said. The U.S. Department of Energy notes that GPS is widely used, but insecure, although few users have taken note. GPS signals for the U.S. military are similarly insecure, and drones often rely on signals from multiple satellites. It's possible to spoof unencrypted civilian GPS systems. But military GPS receivers, such as the one likely installed on the missing drone, use the encrypted P(Y)-code to communicate with satellites. " With spoofing, an adversary provides fake GPS signals. This convinces the GPS receiver that it is located in the wrong place and/or ...