Signal jammers used to disrupt drones and satellite-guided missiles in the Middle East have also diverted planes and ships around Cyprus since the Gaza war began. Now they are confusing residents of the Mediterranean island, perplexed to find that their phones are falsely reporting that they are in other countries.
By Ian Martin, Forbes Staff
On Sunday evening in June, Paris Thomas’ plan to order Thai takeout for dinner took a frustrating turn. His local Thai restaurant, Red Dragon, was only a few blocks away in Limassol, Cyprus, but the food app’s delivery time was more than three and a half hours.
The delay was not due to a kitchen problem or a traffic jam. Thomas’ phone had been tricked into believing he was 150 miles away, across the Mediterranean Sea, in Beirut, Lebanon. “I guess if you factor in the fact that a private jet is going to Lebanon, that’s pretty accurate,” Thomas said. Forbes.
Thomas, a technical consultant, had never left Limassol, but his phone had been fooled by a strong signal that covered up pings from global positioning system (GPS) satellites that confirmed his true location. This signal jammer that “spoofs” inaccurate location data has tormented Thomas and other residents of the southern Mediterranean island for months. “The restaurant just called us laughing and we fixed it. They are used to it now,” he said.
Since March, residents of southern Cyprus have complained that their phones and other tracking devices break down several times a day. In almost all cases, the new location was “usurped” by Beirut Airport, adding to their confusion. Commercial flight data suggests identity theft increased after Iran launched drone and missile strikes on Israel in April, according to GPS researcher Benoit Figuet, co-founder of SkAI Data Services – while the Israeli Defense Forces confirmed that GPS disruption was a tactic used to “neutralize threats.”
Airline pilots and ship captains sailing around Cyprus and the eastern Mediterranean have also faced navigation devices picking up signals broadcasting false locations since the Gaza conflict began. People in Israel, Jordan, Lebanon and now Cyprus have had their locations for maps, food deliveries and dating apps all randomly reset at Beirut airport. The economic impact of this disruption remains uncertain, but satellite navigation is extremely important to the global economy. A 2019 study estimated that a GPS outage would cost the United States alone $1 billion per day.
“Before, this only happened every once in a while. Now we are in Lebanon more often than in Cyprus,” said Thomas, who has not traveled to Lebanon since 2016. Identity theft has wreaked havoc on the smart locks in Thomas’ home, the Airtags from his pets and the Waze mapping app. “You realize how much you depend on some of these technologies.”
About 40 miles east of Larnaca, marketing consultant Charlie Day has seen social media campaigns aimed at Cyprus land in Lebanon, while Google Maps routes frequently include a 22-hour detour via Turkey. Sharing location on WhatsApp can create even more confusion. “You don’t realize how many apps have GPS built in until they don’t work,” Day said. “It doesn’t appear to be one incident, it seems to be an ongoing thing.”
For Giuseppe Pizzo, an Italian tour operator, who went to Cyprus on vacation in May, identity theft dashed his plan to capture drone footage during his trip. “I tried to fly with my drone but the geolocation placed me at Beirut airport and of course I can’t fly inside the airport,” Pizzo said.
Pizzo’s drone and other tracking devices determine their position using signals from GPS satellites and rival orbital networks. These signals are broadcast with little more than the power of a household light bulb and can be drowned out by more powerful ground-based transmitters, which can broadcast false location information. Researchers have warned for more than a decade that such “spoofing” attacks were technically possible, leading to safeguards such as encrypted signals used by military systems or a digital signature on the Galileo satellite network. European Union, but it is still possible to deceive many civilian devices. .
Blockages installed by commercial drone manufacturers like DJI on flights near sensitive locations like airports could explain why the spoofing signal is centered on Beirut airport. “Beirut airport spoofing triggers the internal geographic barriers of some drones that prevent flying near airports,” said Todd E. Humphreys, professor of engineering at the University’s Radio Navigation Laboratory. from Texas to Austin.
Experts do not believe that the intention of this spoofing is to direct missiles towards Beirut airport, but rather to disrupt the navigation systems of missiles and drones. “They are also used to disrupt and jam communications in a combat zone, and could be used for defensive purposes, as in the case of Israel against Hezbollah so far, but also before an offensive military operation,” said Freddy, global security analyst at RANE. Khoueiry.
In this case at least, the signals appear to be coming from Israel. Humphreys said he traced the spoofing signal to an area outside the northern Israeli city of Haifa. “It’s not just Russia, China and Iran anymore: GPS spoofing has become commonplace,” Humphreys said, given that a U.S. ally appears to be using the technology.
Cyprus is not the only place to have been affected by GPS jamming or spoofing. GPSJam.org data from airline flight data shows black spots in the Middle East, the Black Sea, the Baltics and Myanmar. The Federal Aviation Authority warned pilots in January about the risk of GPS reporting false positions, while Finland’s aviation regulator noted that interference in the Baltic increased after Ukraine organized drone attacks in Russia in January.
The growing use of jamming and spoofing technologies has exposed the vulnerabilities of decades-old technology that underpins huge samples of the modern world. The U.S.-owned network of Global Positioning System satellites was initially intended for military use and was offered to civilians after a Korean Air flight mistakenly flew over Soviet airspace and was shot down in 1983. Pilots hit by jammers and spoofers are now forced to rely on instrument and radar-based navigation around hot spots like the Middle East and the Baltic.
In Cyprus, double-checking the location has become part of Thomas’ daily life. There are still surprises, like a Find My Friends update from his wife’s phone also showing her in Beirut. “I asked her if she wanted to eat some Lebanese shawarma while we’re there,” Thomas joked.
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