How Russia has been attacking European aircraft GPS using hybrid warfare techniques for months

BarcelonaThe alleged cyberattack on the plane in which the President of the European Commission was traveling, Ursula von der Leyen, has made a technical concept in the field of aviation gain visibility in recent hours: the GPS jamming, A hybrid warfare tactic that particularly affects airlines serving areas closest to Russia and Ukraine. The pilot of the plane carrying von der Leyen had to land in the Bulgarian city of Plovdiv using analog maps after the aircraft's GPS navigation system had stopped working due to an attack allegedly carried out by Russian intelligence services.

This hybrid warfare method This is not new. In April of last year, the Finnish airline Finnair announced that it was temporarily suspending flights to the Estonian city of Tartu due to an increase in GPS interference on aircraft. A few days later, the Estonian Foreign Ministry summoned the Russian ambassador to protest these practices, which the Baltic country attributes to Moscow.

In a report published in September 2024, OpsGroup – an organization that brings together 8,000 professionals from various areas of the aviation sector – found that cases of GPS jamming had grown by 500% in the first six months of 2024 compared to the first half of the previous year: an average of 1,500 affected flights each day, with a particular impact in Eastern Europe, the Black Sea, and the Middle East. An internal EU Council document from last May indicates that since August 2024 there has been a "dramatic increase" in GPS signal jamming on aircraft and that attacks on ships have also increased since the beginning of this year.

This Monday, the European Union's Defense Commissioner, Andrius Kubilius, assured that the community bloc will increase the number of satellites in low orbit to improve the detection of interference. The Commission also said it had imposed sanctions on several companies involved in the interruption of the GPS signal "in the obvious and blatant case that they originate in Russia."

'GPS jamming'

GPS – short for Global Positioning System – is a network of satellites and receiving devices used for positioning and navigation. It is one of the most important navigation tools in aviation, having replaced traditional ground-based devices that transmitted radio signals to guide aircraft. However, GPS signals are also relatively easy to block or distort, and militaries have invested in the technology to do so.

The concept of GPS jamming, which could be translated as GPS bottleneck, It refers to the practice of using a frequency-transmitting device to block or interfere with communications, usually by emitting signals from the ground that are more powerful than satellite signals. This results in the aircraft no longer receiving information about its location, altitude, and/or actual time. Aircraft have alternative systems to GPS to maintain smooth flight, but these cyberattacks primarily affect the approach to the airport for landing. This is what happened with Von der Leyen's plane, forcing the pilot to use analog maps.

GPS spoofing: identity theft

Lately, pilots are also seeing an increase in another, potentially more dangerous practice known as GPS spoofing, which could be translated as identity theft. In this case, it involves manipulating the signals transmitted by the GPS system to provide false information about the location or time, so the system displays the plane at incorrect coordinates or changes the clock time. "For example, it could tell us that we are currently approaching a mountain, which doesn't make sense given the altitude we are at," explains an SAS pilot in a video on the Flight Radar 24 portal, a website that displays air traffic in real time. He claims that there is some type of interference – either the system crashes or it gives erroneous information – every time they approach Ukraine and also frequently northern Norway and near the Russian enclave of Kaliningrad, on the Baltic Sea.

In July 2024, OpsGroup calculated that the GPS spoofing had grown by 400% in the second quarter of last year: the number of affected flights had gone from an average of about 200 per day to about 900 per day, and flight crews were warning that the intensity of thespoofing was on the rise.

Due to the increase in aircraft GPS interference, Flight Radar 24 has developed a map showing where aircraft are experiencing this type of interference around the world. It also provides this information. the GPS Jam website, which allows for a comparison of the situation with previous years and confirms a significant increase since the start of the Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022.

The Baltic countries have long denounced these practices, which have now intensified and expanded. In Lithuania, for example, these attacks have skyrocketed dramatically in just one year: from 46 cases detected in June 2024 to 1,022 in June of this year, according to the BNS news agency. Faced with this trend, 13 EU member states have asked the European Commission to respond, and the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) has urged Russia to stop interfering with GPS signals, warning that it represents a "serious threat" to passenger flights, especially in the Baltic region.