Ships Running Blind: How GPS Spoofing Is on the Rise

Nir Ayalon, the CEO of Cydome, a maritime cybersecurity firm based in Israel, says there has been a 500 percent rise in GPS spoofing and jamming this year.

A screenshot from Israeli maritime cybersecurity firm Cydome's system, of an example of a GPS spoofing incident involving a ship in an undisclosed location on Jan. 7, 2024. Courtesy of Cydome

There has been a big increase in the number of Global Positioning System (GPS) spoofing or jamming attacks, aimed at messing with the GNSS (Global Navigation Satellite System) data, which is standard on all international shipping.

Jeroen Pijpker, from NHL Stenden University of Applied Sciences in the Netherlands, told The Epoch Times they had recorded 400 GPS spoofing and jamming incidents in their database—25 percent of which related to actual vessels—but he believed it was the “tip of the iceberg.”