Global Incidents of Aviation Spoofing in 2024- 2025 Detected with Automatic Dependent Surveillance Broadcast

Sherman Lo, Zixi Liu, Lyla Ibrahim, Yu Hsuan Chen, Dennis Akos, Todd Walter

Peer Reviewed

Abstract:	Recent events have made it clear that aviation can no longer ignore the issue of GNSS spoofing. While flights are being affected near conflict regions such as Syria, Israel and Russia, these events are not confined to just those regions but are more commonplace. Crowdsourced data from automatic dependent surveillance broadcast (ADS-B) has made clear that there are many other areas being regularly affected by GNSS spoofing. And since the data is derived from ADS-B, this means that aviation GNSS systems are being affected. This paper examines recent GNSS spoofing incidents that we have found around the world using ADS-B. It examines the different types of trajectories seen and some of characteristics of each. First, the paper will overview the various unique regions and incidents of GNSS spoofing that we have detected. For example, in Russia, there are many regions that exhibit spoofing. One region is around Smolensk where there is a large area of spoofing that results in aircraft showing that it is flying in circles around Smolensk (Lo 2024). There is spoofing in the Black Sea that been results in aircraft appearing to be on approach to airports in Crimea. And in Kaliningrad, there is clear evidence of spoofing with multi-frequency jamming. The eastern Mediterranean is another area with well-known incidents where aircraft are spoofed to either Beirut or Cairo airport. But GNSS spoofing is more widespread than just conflict regions. For example, there are persistent spoofing events in Myanmar and India-Pakistan border. The paper then examines specific event regions and the characteristics to the spoofing in these areas. From the data, we examine the characteristics, persistence and consistency of the spoofing. The analysis helps address the questions: 1) “What different spoofing patterns are being used?” 2) “Is it always on?” 3) “Does it change over time?” We also examine means of better understanding the impact of the spoofing such as the region and frequencies affected. The data from ADS-B is limited for this purpose due to many factors such as its use of GPS L1 only and gaps in ground coverage. Under spoofing, the reported (i.e. spoofed) positions do not provide the true location of the aircraft. Hence, we use other means and sources to 2 supplement the ADS-B data to better understand the area and frequency of the interference. The paper uses of radiofrequency interference (RFI) events coming from Kaliningrad to demonstrate this.
Published in:	Proceedings of the 2026 International Technical Meeting of The Institute of Navigation January 26 - 29, 2026 Hyatt Regency Orange County Anaheim, California
Pages:	502 - 515
Cite this article:	Lo, Sherman, Liu, Zixi, Ibrahim, Lyla, Chen, Yu Hsuan, Akos, Dennis, Walter, Todd, "Global Incidents of Aviation Spoofing in 2024- 2025 Detected with Automatic Dependent Surveillance Broadcast," Proceedings of the 2026 International Technical Meeting of The Institute of Navigation, Anaheim, California, January 2026, pp. 502-515. https://doi.org/10.33012/2026.20527
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