00:00joining me today is a leading voice in the cyber security space in india mr jitain jain first of
00:16all thank you so much mr jain for speaking with asianet news on the incidents of gps spoofing
00:23which took place in india at some of the major airports thanks enough for having me mr jain i
00:28want to start with you telling our viewers in a very simple language because we generally hear
00:34about gps jamming but talk to me about what is gps spoofing so that they can understand how dangerous
00:41the situation can get essentially you know to start with for ordinary people to understand
00:47gps is basically a constellation of satellites which using the you know atomic clock on board
00:54satellites the navigational data and the on-ground sensors tell you the exact location
00:58of your mobile device or the receiver like you know when you're driving you try and use google maps
01:04it does get assisted gps location where satellite is guiding your exact location where do you want to
01:09go so it can help you do three things a it can give you the exact location it can give you navigation
01:14data it can give you the exact time because all these gps gps satellites support atomic clocks on
01:20board so it can tell you the exact time uh you know which is like perfect to the nanoseconds and
01:25uh so now uh what so gps jamming is where somebody jams a signal you are not able to know where you are
01:33you are not able to use the gps data you are not able to receive the signal uh when it comes to spoofing
01:38you are not jamming the signal but you are in a way overriding the signal with a you know bigger strength
01:43and the fake data so you are basically broadcasting a signal from a fake gps device uh mimicking a
01:50satellite uh with a bigger strength than the fake data so the receiver uh you know straight into
01:55believing that this uh you know more uh this new signal with a better strength is the actual gps
02:01satellite signal when you get hooked on to that fake gps signal you get wrong locations which in turn
02:07might lead you to the wrong navigational data it might give you the wrong time so if you are able to
02:12broadcast a fake gps signal you can make a power grid collapse because you can give it the fake
02:16time stamping data you can give wrong navigational data to vehicles aircraft to many other people
02:22so once you have the wrong location obviously the navigation data will also be wrong now if suppose
02:27though usually you know in aircraft if the gps data is not working off it is wrong or a pilot is
02:31in some sort of doubt they can always cross verify or switch over to the ground-based navigation where
02:35they have got integrated landing system radars ground-based uh navigational radars so they can they
02:40have those backup navigation options i was coming to that uh mr jen if i can interrupt you here
02:45for example when a pilot is flying a plane and suddenly he gets to know that there is a there
02:51is an incident of gps spoofing and then he tries to switch to the other layers of redundancy or should
02:57i say non-gps backups uh how reliable are these systems that you're talking about these systems have
03:04been reliable for uh you know almost decades in 50s 60s there was no gps data they were all using this
03:09ground-based navigational radars and systems but in the current age where the aircrafts are on autopilot
03:14they use gps navigational data so the dependency has and in the case of low visibility you know
03:21the long flights gps is now a new normal it's not that you know if you and me do not get a gps signal
03:27will not be able to go to office or will not be able to navigate the way but it will be much more
03:31difficult it will be problematic you might not be able to take the best path so likewise a pilot you
03:37know especially in the in this era where there is huge passenger traffic every one minute there
03:41are five planes landing yeah you know you need species and navigation and guidance especially
03:46in cities like delhi where there is no visibility gps has become a huge dependency so if you do away
03:51if you take off the gps or pick a fake you know location data you might create confusion you might
03:58create panic it may not itself lead to some accident but this confusion and delay might lead to a
04:04catastrophe you know so you know if there is one out of thousand chances that you know the aircraft
04:08a pilot might make an error uh in the navigational data so it's a very dangerous trend to distract the
04:14pilots to you know give fake navigational data and this is life critical because see ultimately an
04:21aircraft might be on low fuel right it might have seconds of fuel left and it may be relying on gps data
04:26suddenly the navigation data is gone wrong you may not have time to switch back and cross verify it with the
04:31other navigational data so in that case you know it might become uh you know life critical but how
04:37soon can a pilot recover the aircraft once he knows that there is an incident of gps spoofing
04:44well they they have persistent navigational data available from the different sensors from
04:48ground-based navigation but gps is today these days is the primary source of navigation they can always
04:52cross verify and that and that is why they figure out that there's spoofing going on because the two
04:56different sensors are so in two different locations can you tell me what exactly the indian government
05:01and the ministry is doing in order to tackle the situation but i have no idea what they are doing
05:07i can only speculate they must be trying to figure out the source of this gps you know spoofing the
05:11source of fake signals and for that they might be looking to figure out from the way the signals are
05:16coming what is the strength and when it is happening so i'm sure now whatever they are doing it will not
05:20be in public domain and i'm definitely i would not be aware of it but i'm quite intrigued about this
05:25entire concept i mean is it so easy to have a satellite with with a greater uh you know strength
05:32to override all of these systems does it only take a satellite or there are different elements involved
05:38in it you don't need a fake satellite to do a fake you know gps signal you might actually have a fake
05:43satellite in the lower orbit or you know in the higher orbit and do a fake gps signal but you don't
05:49need that you could just plant a fake cantina with a gps spoofer and capabilities and you know
05:53know rs super and you know maybe mount it on a vehicle or put it on a building and broadcast a
05:58fake gps signal it did not come from a satellite only so is there no system in place to uh nap these
06:04people to track the location trace the location of where these gps signals are coming from
06:10well there are no clear-cut ways it is extremely difficult but there are ways and means and i'm sure
06:15government would be trying and we don't know whether the source of this pooping is consistent at one
06:19place or it is moving we don't know so government would be looking at all the possibilities and then
06:23you know also uh you know many of the aircrafts or other gps signal receivers are now using this
06:29technology of encryption and the verifying the source of signal so they know if the signal is coming
06:33they're trying to have some sort of you know credential mechanism where they are able to verify the
06:40source of signal so those technologies are yet to come and yet to be implemented all the you know
06:45critical uh sectors like aviation but till the time we are under threat and i am sure government
06:50would be doing their best to figure out the source of smoking the dgc has also said that now they
06:55need to give the details of gps spoofing within 10 minutes yeah so that they can warn other aircraft
07:01they can save time and you know once you are figuring out spoofing it just takes you know a minute
07:05to inform the atc so they are just giving it more priority so that they can warn the other aircraft
07:11do you think that this entire uh incident of gps is spoofing all of the incidents that have taken
07:17place in india can we look at it with an angle of hybrid warfare no obviously gps spoofing has always
07:23been a part integral part of cyber warfare and technology warfare these days you would have seen
07:28reports of russia jamming the gps signals to you know create problems for the uh european planes where
07:35you know european president was on board so it has been happening it did happen in the you know syria
07:40conflict so gps jamming is common uh it happens in korea very often the korean border but gpf spoofing
07:48at this scale is really to be seen and we are probably facing first of its kind you know cyber
07:53attack in terms of gps booking do you think that there has to be a better collaboration between
07:58civil aviation and military so that because this is a case of hybrid warfare in the making
08:05i'm sure that is already there and that is how they're figuring out this is going on so that those
08:09systems and mechanisms are just already anything that you want to uh tell to our viewers regarding
08:15this if we can be cautious enough to uh face this challenge in the future no i mean if you face any
08:24problem with the location data if you think that location is going wrong by kilometers in your google
08:30maps and discuss system and many other people are also facing maybe report it to cyber helpline
08:33you know information uh going to the government is always welcome
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