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The West Is Terrifyingly Vulnerable to Chinese Hacking of GPS – Heritage Foundation

May 5, 2025

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Written by Editor

Image: Shutterstock

What’s new: A reminder and concise summary of issues from Diana Furchtgott-Roth at the Heritage Foundation.

Why it’s important: This huge national security threat has yet to be acknowledged by the U.S. administration, or any other western government. The message coming from the conservative Heritage Foundation may have more credibility with the party in power.

What else to know:

  • Diana was the Deputy Assistant Secretary at the Department of Transportation in the first Trump administration and was responsible for PNT issues.
  • We like the following highlights from her post:

Protecting global navigation satellite systems from interference from China, Russia and Iran is a matter of extreme importance.

In America, Congress has repeatedly asked the Department of Transportation to install a back-up to GPS, without allocating sufficient funds to do so.

This is an area where like-minded governments can and should work together to develop reliable back-ups, both for economic and military security.

 

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The West Is Terrifyingly Vulnerable to Chinese Hacking of GPS

Apr 10, 2025
Diana Furchtgott-RothDirector, Center for Energy, Climate, and Environment

The West may be divided on tariffs, but all countries can agree that protecting global navigation satellite systems from interference from China, Russia and Iran is a matter of extreme importance. Disruptions would pose an immense economic and national security threat, costing trillions of dollars daily, dwarfing any market disruptions from tariffs.

Global navigation satellite systems are free services that send positioning, timing and navigation systems to phones, banks and other electric utilities. America has the global positioning system (GPS), Europe has Galileo and China has Bei Dou. But these systems are vulnerable. They depend on satellites, which can be damaged by electromagnetic storms or military attacks. Even with the satellites intact, hacking incidents proliferate, using inexpensive, easily available hardware.

Both China and Russia have shown that they have the capacity to take down Western satellites. The University of Texas student Zach Clements, meanwhile, has traced GPS manipulation to Iran.

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