A 63-hour-long marathon of GPS jamming attacks disrupted global satellite navigation systems for hundreds of aircraft flying through the Baltic region – and Russia is thought to be responsible

A 63-hour-long marathon of GPS jamming attacks disrupted global satellite navigation systems for hundreds of aircraft flying through the Baltic region – and Russia is thought to be responsible

Russia is suspected of launching a record-breaking 63-hour-long attack on GPS signals in the Baltic region. The incident, which affected hundreds of passenger jets earlier this month, occurred amid rising tensions between Russia and the NATO military alliance more than two years since the start of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

“We have seen an increase in GPS jamming since the start of Russia’s war against Ukraine, and allies have publicly warned that Russia has been behind GPS jamming affecting aviation and shipping,” a NATO official told New Scientist. “Russia has a track record of jamming GPS signals and has a range of capabilities for electronic warfare.”

    • @dogslayeggsEnglish
      0•9 months ago

      Do you think country-wide jamming of a high-power radio signal is easy? The magnitude of difference between jamming a building and jamming at airline altitudes or at long distances is massive. You don’t just go out and buy a jammer that blocks GPS for a country.

      • @[email protected]English
        3•9 months ago

        I don’t think that for an individual it is easy. But for a country as large as Russia (even with a somewhat pathetic economy)

        • @dogslayeggsEnglish
          0•9 months ago

          I work developing the next generation GPS satellites, and half of my job is dealing with defeating jamming. Without giving specifics that can only be shared in a SCIF, jammers are for small regional use, not for large scale usage. RF power drops off at 1/r^2, so doubling the distance requires 4 times the power. A normal person can buy a jammer that handles a few hundred feet around their house or car. It is 100x harder to cover a city block of buildings and is mostly restricted to governments (my math could be off on that, since RF isn’t my specialty). Going from jamming a city block of government buildings to jamming flight traffic in a small neighborhood is roughly 100 times as much as that power. Going from that small neighborhood to blocking a very small country is 100 times as much as that power (or 10,000 as much as the power of a big jammer). Doing the same thing but with multiple RF signals is even harder.

          I can’t talk about Russia’s specific capabilities, but even for Russia it wouldn’t be easy outside a small region.