Researchers from the University of Texas at Austin have identified an Israeli air base as a major source of GPS attacks that have disrupted the navigation of civilian airlines in the Middle East.
These attacks, also known as spoofing, involve sending manipulated GPS signals, causing the aircraft’s instruments to miscalculate their location.
The researchers, Todd Humphreys and Zach Clements, said they were “highly confident” the spoofing attacks came from Ein Shemer Airfield in northern Israel. The Israeli military declined to comment Tuesday.
The researchers used data transmitted by the spoofer and picked up by satellites in low Earth orbit to determine its location, then confirmed their calculations with data collected on the ground in Israel.
Spoofing and GPS jamming have increased dramatically over the past three years, particularly near war zones in Ukraine and Gaza, where militaries are jamming navigation signals to thwart missile and drone attacks.
The Middle East has become a spoofing hotspot. The University of Texas researchers did not say how many spoofing attacks they linked to the military base, but a separate analysis estimates that more than 50,000 flights have been spoofed in the region this year.
According to researchers from SkAI Data Services and the Zurich University of Applied Sciences, the attacks fooled pilots into thinking they were flying over airports in Beirut or Cairo, when they were not. who analyzed the data of the OpenSky network.
Swiss International Air Lines says its flights over the Middle East are spoofed almost daily.
Separately, Estonia and other Baltic countries have blamed Russia for disrupting signals in their airspace. In April, Finnair temporarily suspended flights to an Estonian airport after turning back two flights due to severe GPS interference.
The attacks now cover large parts of the world, far from the battlefields.
In addition to causing navigational confusion, spoofing can trigger false warnings that planes are too close to the ground. But the attacks have not made flying dangerous, because pilots can use alternative navigation methods.
“Losing GPS is not going to cause planes to fall out of the sky,” said Jeremy Benington, vice president of Spirent Communications, which tests global navigation systems. “But I wouldn’t deny that we’re removing layers of security.”
