Israel’s using widespread GPS tampering to deter Hezbollah’s missiles Politico shares research data

“This is the most sustained and clear indication of spoofing I’ve ever seen” and affects potentially hundreds of large commercial airplanes, said Todd Humphreys, a professor at UTexas. His graduate student, Zach Clements, first discovered the spoofing pattern.

 

Pilots on those planes use GPS as one of their key navigation tools, optimizing flight routes, reducing fuel usage and helping with landing among other important functions. A spoofing incident over Iraq and Iran in September almost caused a business jet to fly into Iranian airspace without clearance.

 

Missiles that use GPS could also be thrown off their trajectory, making it hard to predict where in Israeli territory they would land. That could pose additional risks to civilians from missiles meant for military targets.

The Israel Defense Forces announced on October 15 that GPS had been “restricted in active combat zones in accordance with various operational needs,” but did not note the extent of the signal disruptions.

Citizens near Israel’s border should stay near protected zones, the statement said, and Israelis should also expect “temporary glitches in location-based applications” like Google Maps.

Fighting between Israel and Hezbollah continued on Saturday, with Israel killing six of the Iran-backed group’s fighters, Reuters reported. One IDF soldier was killed after being struck by an anti-tank missile.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu warned Hezbollah that it would be making “the mistake of its life” if it chooses to become more involved in the conflict: “We will cripple it with unimaginable force,” he said during a visit to soldiers in northern Israel over the weekend.