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 ongoing 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 have got 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
02:26though usually you know in aircraft if the gps data is not working off it is wrong or pilot is in
02:31some 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 how reliable are these systems that you're talking about these systems have been
03:04reliable 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
03:14uh they 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 are
03:41pipelines landing yeah you know you need species and navigation and guidance especially in cities
03:47like delhi where there is no visibility gps has become a huge dependency so if you do away if you
03:52take off the gps or pick a fake you know location data you might create confusion you might create panic
03:58it may not itself lead to some accident but this confusion and delay might lead to a catastrophe you
04:05know so you know if there is one out of thousand chances that you know the aircraft a pilot might
04:09make an error uh in the navigational data so it's a very dangerous trend to distract the pilots to you
04:15know give fake navigational data and this is life critical because see ultimately an aircraft might be
04:21on low fuel right it might have seconds of fuel left and it may be relying on gps data suddenly the
04:27navigation data is gone now you may not have time to switch back and cross verify it with the other
04:31navigational data so in that case you know it might become uh you know life critical but how soon can
04:38a pilot recover the aircraft once he knows that there is an incident of gps spoofing
04:43no they they have persistent navigational data available from the different sensors from ground
04:48with 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
04:56the two different sensors are so in two different locations can you tell me what exactly the indian
05:01government and the ministry is doing in order to tackle the situation but i have no idea what
05:06they are doing i can only speculate they must be trying to figure out the source of this gps
05:10you know spoofing the source of fake signals and for that they might be looking to figure out from the
05:16way the signals are coming what is the strength and when it is happening so i'm sure now whatever
05:20they are doing it will not be in public domain and i'm definitely i would not be aware of it
05:23but i'm quite intrigued about this entire concept i mean is it so easy to have a satellite with
05:29with a greater uh you know strength to override all of these systems does it only take a satellite
05:36or there are different elements involved in it no you don't need a fake satellite to do a fake
05:41you know gps signal you might actually have a fake satellite in the low earth orbit or you know
05:45in the higher orbit and do a fake gps signal but you don't need that you could just plant a fake
05:51cantina with a gps spoofer and capabilities and you know rs spoofer and you know maybe mount it on
05:55a vehicle or put it on a building and broadcast a fake gps signal it did not come from a satellite
05:59only so is there no system in place to uh nap these people to track the location trace the location of
06:07where these gps signals are coming from oh there are no clear-cut ways it is extremely difficult but
06:13there are ways and means and i'm sure government would be trying and we don't know whether the source of
06:18this pooping is consistent at one place or it is moving we don't know so government would be looking
06:22at all the possibilities and then you know also uh you know many of the aircrafts or other gps signal
06:27receivers are now using this technology of encryption and the verifying the source of signal so they know
06:33if the signal is coming they're trying to have some sort of you know credential mechanism where they are
06:39able to verify the source of signal so those technologies are yet to come and yet to be implemented
06:44all the you know critical uh sectors like aviation but till the time we are under threat and i am sure
06:49government would be doing their best to figure out the source of spoofing the dgc has also said that
06:54now they need to give the details of gps spoofing within 10 minutes yeah so that they can warn other
07:01aircraft they can save time and you know once you are figuring out spoofing it just takes you know a
07:05minute to 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
07:23always been a part integral part of cyber warfare and technology warfare these days you would have
07:27seen reports of russia jamming the gps signals to you know create problems for the uh european planes
07:34where you know european president was on board so it has been happening it did happen in the you know
07:40syria conflict so gps jamming is common uh it happens in korea very often the korean border but
07:47gpf spoofing at this scale is rarely to be seen and we are probably facing first of its kind
07:53you know cyber attack in terms of gps booking do you think that there has to be a better
07:57collaboration between civil aviation and military so that because this is a case of hybrid warfare in
08:03the making i'm sure that is already there and that is how they're figuring out this is going on so
08:08that those systems and mechanisms exist already anything that you want to uh tell to our viewers
08:15regarding this if we can be cautious enough to uh face this challenge in the future no i mean
08:23if you face any problem with the location data if you think that location is going wrong by kilometers
08:29in your google maps and discuss system and many other people are also facing maybe report it to cyber
08:33helpline you know information uh going to the government is always welcome
08:46you
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