Image: Skytruth – AIS circle spoofing off Pt. Reyes, CA
What’s new: Windward’s quarterly update on maritime spoofing.
Why it’s important: While interference with aviation gets the most press, maritime is also vulnerable and impacted. Spoofing can, and has, caused accidents, hide nefarious activity, and be an aid in hijacking cargo or entire vessels
What else to know: Windward is a long standing commercial contributor to maritime domain awareness and analysis. In 2017 they partnered with RNT Foundation to reveal the first publicized incidents of GPS/AIS spoofing in maritime.
Report
Top 5 Geopolitical Disruptions – Q1 2025
Q1 2025 featured the highest number of sanctioned vessels since 2022 and the largest number of both new and alignment designations of maritime companies by global regulators since early 2023.
We saw changing tariffs and the beginning of a global trade war, and the EU unveiled its 16th sanctions package on Russia, targeting ports, financial institutions, and vessels tied to circumvention. There was also a major change in how vessels experiencing GPS jamming started appearing on tracking maps and three new GPS jamming hotspots emerged.
This report delves into the volatile landscape of geopolitical tensions and sanctions regimes, offering Maritime AI-generated insights so you can better understand and quantify the scope of disruption and new trends…
GPS Jamming
- The average distance vessels “jump” to when their AIS is jammed grew from 600 km in Q4 2024, to a staggering 6,300 km in Q1 2025
