5 Questions: Todd Humphreys: GPS Spoofing Threatens Airliners

In 2023, at least 20 civilian aircraft flying through the Middle East were misled by their onboard GPS units into flying near Iranian airspace without clearance—situations that could have provoked an international incident. These planes were victims of GPS spoofing, in which deceptive signals from the ground, disguised as signals from GPS satellites in orbit, trick an aircraft's instruments into reporting the aircraft's location as some-where that it isn't. Spoofing is a more sophisticated tactic than GPS jamming, in which malicious signals overwhelm a targeted GPS receiver until it can no longer function.