Spirent Security Experts Predict Greater Risk to Civil and Military Global Navigation Applications In 2017
03 February 2017 - 12:00AM
Business Wire
Also Expect Continued High Risk for DDoS and
Breaches in IoT Healthcare, and Automotive Industries
Spirent Communications plc (LSE:SPT), the leading provider of
mobile network, application, services, and device-test solutions,
today warned of the increased likelihood of disruptions this year
to a wide variety of civil and military applications relying on
global navigation satellite systems (GNSS) – GPS, GLONASS, Galileo,
and BeiDou. The prediction of greater risk from hacking and
location spoofing attacks by criminal, state-sponsored, and other
adversaries is part of Spirent’s annual security forecast for 2017.
The forecast also highlights the continued risk of distributed
denial of service (DDoS) attacks on Internet of things (IoT)
devices and industries, including health care and automotive, that
Spirent believes are the prime targets for security threats in the
near future.
Last year, Spirent’s predictions for 2016 led off with a
prescient warning about the increased risk of cyber espionage,
which has since been borne out, most notably by news reports of
suspected activities by the Russian government to influence the
2016 U.S. presidential election. Also as predicted, in 2016 threats
from ransomware, malicious insiders, and compromised IoT devices
increased, as did attacks on industrial control systems. For
example, FBI sources reported on CNN that losses attributed to
ransomware in the U.S. were set to exceed $1 billion by the end of
2016. That number is expected to grow in 2017.
In addition to an increased likelihood of GNSS interference,
Spirent’s annual security forecast for 2017 predicts an expansion
of risks from:
- More frequent DDoS attacks against IoT
devices, as evidenced in the last quarter of 2016, when multiple
major DDoS attacks surfaced worldwide. The most disruptive attack
employed Mirai malware covertly installed on a large number of IoT
devices. A number of high-profile websites such as Netflix, AirBnB,
Twitter, GitHub, and others were rendered inaccessible. Spirent
believes that perpetrators will continue to innovate and find new
methods for improving and broadening these type of attacks.
- Threats to IoT security, which are
increasing as everything that is connected becomes a potential
attack vector, including embedded devices, mobile devices, consumer
electronics, connected medical devices, industrial control systems,
smart home devices, and more.
- Threats to medical applications,
networks, and devices in the health care industry, both the
back-office systems on which these facilities run and the medical
instruments that provide care to patients. A ransomware infection
or data breach could adversely affect patient health and
privacy.
- Threats to connected vehicles by
malicious attackers, as a greater number of attack vectors are
inadvertently created that enable remotely gaining control of
critical operational components of the vehicle, including engine,
steering, and braking functions in addition to other vehicle
systems that communicate through the relatively insecure CAN bus
infrastructure.
“With the greater drive towards use of autonomous vehicles,
which rely heavily on precision GPS positioning and timing, threats
posed by signal spoofing, jamming, time tinkering, and more could
result in serious disruptions and worse,” said Sameer Dixit, senior
director of security consulting at Spirent. “The transportation
industry is taking this very seriously and already looking at
various ways to protect against these threats. Because of this, we
see momentum towards improving GNSS security in 2017.”
According to an article in Defense One, Timothy Bennett, a
science-and-technology program manager at the Department of
Homeland Security, has already reported the use of GPS spoofing and
jamming equipment by Mexican drug cartels along the border to
interfere with the U.S. Customs and Border Protection agency’s use
of drones to patrol the area. Unlike the larger drones designed to
military specifications, the smaller drones used for this purpose
are more vulnerable to these kinds of attacks.
Spirent’s global network of GPS interference detectors has
recorded more than 15,000 interference events since it was deployed
in 2015, including a surprisingly high number of unintentional
events caused by various forms of interference in the GPS L1
frequency band. A significant number of these unintentional events,
which often correlate with transmissions from nearby RF
transmitters and telecom equipment, have the potential to interfere
with GPS signal reception.
Dixon noted one bright spot on the horizon: the increasing
awareness up and down the technology food chain of the importance
of security in these systems, and the entry of large, experienced,
and security-conscious players into the IoT arena.
About Spirent Communications
Spirent Communications is a leader in assessment, validation,
and monitoring solutions that test and verify the performance and
security of enterprise network and application infrastructures in a
broad range of environments, including enterprise, IoT, automotive,
mobility, and critical infrastructures. Global 2000 customers in
government, industry, healthcare, and financial services employ
Spirent Security products and services to ensure an unsurpassed
service experience while meeting business objectives of reducing
churn, increasing revenue, and strengthening market share. For more
information about Spirent Security solutions and services, visit
www.spirent.com/security.
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