1,951 GPS Tampering Incidents with Aircraft in India

India has reported 1,951 incidents of tampering with aircraft GPS systems over the past two years. This information was shared by the government in the Lok Sabha on December 11. GPS helps aircraft determine their exact location, direction, and altitude, playing a crucial role in flight navigation.

Any disturbance in the GPS data could cause the aircraft to veer off course, which can lead to serious accidents. Recently, incidents of GPS spoofing and tampering were reported at airports in Delhi, Mumbai, Kolkata, Amritsar, Hyderabad, Bengaluru, and Chennai.

Minister of State for Civil Aviation, Muralidhar Mohol, mentioned that the Wireless Monitoring Organization is investigating these incidents. On November 10, the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) issued an SOP (Standard Operating Procedure) for real-time reporting of GPS spoofing/GNSS tampering around Delhi Airport.

In the past 12 days, the government has acknowledged GPS spoofing for the second time. Earlier, on December 1, Union Civil Aviation Minister K. Ram Mohan Naidu had informed the Rajya Sabha that tampering had occurred with the Automatic Message Switching System (AMSS) at Delhi's Indira Gandhi International Airport (IGIA) on November 7.

As a result of the tampering on November 7, flight operations at Delhi Airport were disrupted for more than 12 hours, with over 800 domestic and international flights delayed and 20 flights canceled. Naidu mentioned that globally, the threat of ransomware and malware attacks is increasing. The Airports Authority of India (AAI) is implementing advanced cybersecurity measures to ensure the safety of its IT and critical infrastructure.