Israeli anti-missile spoofing scrambles airliners’ GPS, dating apps

Directing false signals to send Hezbollah attacks off track is causing serious problems over the skies of  Israel and neighboring countries.

By Batya Jerenberg, World Israel News

Israeli efforts to protect its citizenry from missile attacks is causing serious problems over the skies of neighboring countries as civilian airliners’ GPS systems often go haywire when landing.

In countries such as Lebanon, Jordan, Cyprus and as far away as Turkey, as planes approach their runways, pilots have suddenly received a ground proximity warning, as if they were about to crash into a mountain, or their sensors tell them that they are dozens if not hundreds of miles away from where they really are.

Flights to Israel’s Ben Gurion Airport have of course been affected as well. Internet flight trackers, for example, regularly tell passengers that they are landing in Beirut instead of Tel Aviv.

The method being used is called “spoofing,” which is different than the standard blocking of satellite signals.

“I like to say that spoofing is the new jamming,” said Professor of Aerospace Engineering at the University of Texas at Austin Todd Humphreys in a recent NPR report. “Instead of just jamming the signals and breaking the links with GPS satellites, they’re spoon-feeding them false signals.”

These signals need to be very powerful in order to overcome missiles’ GPS receivers, which is why such a wide area is affected.

The New York Times reported last week that Humphrey’s team is “highly confident” that the Ein Shemer military airfield in northern Israel is the spoofing source.

The paper also noted that over 50,000 flights in the Middle East have been disturbed by the phenomenon since the beginning of the year.

While it declined to comment on this specific report, the IDF has acknowledged its use of electronic scrambling due to the need to redirect air attacks by hostile forces such as Hezbollah and Hamas, which have launched well over 10,000 missiles and rockets at the Jewish state since October 7.

“We are aware that these disruptions cause inconveniences, but it is a vital and necessary tool in our defensive capabilities,” said Israeli chief military spokesman Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari in April.

Spoofing is not only an issue in the Middle East, as airlines have complained that they have had trouble in the region around Ukraine ever since Russia invaded over two years ago.

Many pilots have started turning off their GPS systems in problem areas, which affects flight safety, although they can rely on what air controllers tell them and use other navigation methods.

GPS on the ground has also been affected, in Israel and abroad.

Drivers in both Lebanon and Israel, for example, have known for months that they cannot rely on Waze or Google Maps to guide them, as they can suddenly be told they’re in Cairo, Egypt.

This has impinged on the work of such businesses as taxi services, food delivery companies, and, perhaps more humorously, dating apps, as singles are told that the person they are looking for is not where they thought he or she was.

The government of Lebanon is not amused, however, by the disruptions, and complained several months ago to the UN Security Council that Israel’s “reckless” electronic behavior was an attack on the country’s sovereignty.

It is unknown if the Lebanese also indicated their displeasure to Hezbollah, which is part of the governing coalition, over the terror organization’s aerial attacks on Israel that are the prime cause of the IDF’s countermeasures.

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