Hacker Team takes over $80 Million Super Yacht

Flaws in the GPS system have been known for a while now, but when a security team took over a 210 foot super yacht by spoofing a GPS signal, more than a few eyebrows were raised.

Using about $3,000 worth of equipment GPS expert Todd Humphreys and his security team from the University of Texas were able to take over the navigation system of a large ship in the Mediterranean.

“We injected our spoofing signals into its GPS antennas and we’re basically able to control its navigation system with our spoofing signals,” Humphreys told Fox News.

After spoofing the GPS guidance signal, Humphreys’ team took the ship through a series of turns, and navigational changes that if done by a real attacker, could have put the ship at great risk.

The ship Captain, Andrew Schofield and his crew could not detect anything amiss.

“Professor Humphreys and his team did a number of attacks and basically we on the bridge were absolutely unaware of any difference,” Schofield said. “I was gobsmacked — but my entire deck team was similarly gobsmacked”

This is very concerning as planes could also be attacked with similar techniques. A few months ago we talked about how plane controls could be attacked with SIMON and PlaneSploit.

GPS navigational navigational security need to be addressed and secured so this doesn’t happen in real life.

For more information see the original FoxNews article.