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What’s new: A report about spoofing-enabled theft in the U.S.
Why it’s important: It is more evidence about over-reliance on GPS signals, and the vulnerabilities that most people are ignorant of or ignore.
What else to know:
- It is not illegal to own a GPS jammer or spoofer in the U.S.
- The U.S. has no wide-area detection system for GPS interference
- The Federal Communications Commission is the only federal law enforcement agency that can act against illegal radio transmissions, and they have very few monitoring or enforcement assets.
- In 2020 Mexico changed their law to include penalties of 12 to 15 years in prison to individuals who manufacture, market, distribute, install, buy, carry, use or operate equipment that hinders or cancels audio, video and data communication signals. At the time the government of Mexico estimated that 85% of cargo thefts were aided by some form of GPS interference device.
- We don’t know of any stats for the U.S., however:
- 71% of shipping professionals in a survey said GPS jamming and spoofing was a top concern, and
- GPS spoofing is common enough to be driving up trucking insurance rates.
Highway thieves are spoofing GPS to steal millions in data center-bound cargo
Investigators explain how highway thieves stole $100M in data center equipment.
Highway thieves are using sophisticated digital tactics that investigators worry make it easy to rob trucks carrying millions in expensive data center equipment.
NBC News spoke to “several industry leaders, consultants, and investigators advising law enforcement” offices probing the biggest thefts yet and reported that since June, thieves have “made away with more than $100 million in data center freight.”
Here’s how they said thieves get away with it: First, thieves hack freight brokers’ accounts on shipment-listing websites and post fake shipments to lure real bids, then send a malicious link to any trucking companies that respond. Once victims click, thieves install software to take control of their accounts and start bidding on real shipments. Sometimes, a real delivery driver is hired to collect the cargo, unaware of the scam, and other times fake driver’s licenses are used to get accomplices hired. Either way, the goods are eventually transferred to a driver working with the thieves to resell the gear, and, in one of the largest thefts, tracking coordinates were spoofed to prevent digital monitoring.
Equipment commonly targeted includes “servers, fiber-optic cables, computer memory chips, copper wires, and bitcoin mining machines,” NBC News reported.
