U.S. Drone Hijacked by GPS Hack?

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I'm not saying this report is bogus but I find it hard to believe these guys "hacked" anything. Aren't these the same people that were shut down by the Stuxnet worm and had to fake missile pictures (poorly) with Photoshop? :rolleyes:

Hackers reconfigured the GPS system of the RQ-170 Sentinel, forcing it to "land on its own where we wanted it to, without having to crack the remote-control signals and communications," said an unnamed Iranian engineer who said he examined the captured drone.
 
I doubt they did it without help. Freelance hacker for hire maybe.
 
Didn't they say they shot it down? So they hacked a satellite and changed the GPS coordinates to make the thing fly into Iran and then they shot it down and safely landed it at the same time? I hope they realize once the retard in office is out they'll most likely be on our list to invade, like it or not war creates jobs and we are good at it and Isreal is waiting for the chance to strike as well. I see a great year before us!
 
There are plenty of highly trained tech sector people in Iran, though I still doubt the story.
 
Didn't they say they shot it down? So they hacked a satellite and changed the GPS coordinates to make the thing fly into Iran and then they shot it down and safely landed it at the same time? I hope they realize once the retard in office is out they'll most likely be on our list to invade, like it or not war creates jobs and we are good at it and Isreal is waiting for the chance to strike as well. I see a great year before us!

I know, right? How dare they take offense to our violation of their airspace!
 
.........like it or not war creates jobs and we are good at it and Isreal is waiting for the chance to strike as well. I see a great year before us!

Its nice to see you've volunteered to join the Armed Forces fight the evils in the world.
 
The US claimed it malfunctioned and crashed

IRan claimed it took control of it and made it land (read mild crash) where part of the wing was damaged. Iran never said they shot it down. just that they captured it via electronic ambush.
 
Surprised the thing didn't have a self destruct system running on very low level code.
 
Wasn't there studies a year or two ago that stated that most of the drones flying today are made with 1990s era hardware that was wide open and parts were becoming so cheap that you could build something to override the controls for a couple of hundred dollars?
 
They aren't claiming they broke the encryption on the communications and took control of it.

They are saying they jammed the communications, forced it into autopilot, and spoofed the GPS so it would land in iran.

This might be crazy, but I'd have a fail safe inside with a block of C4 attached to it.
 
I still think this was an inside job. For one, this plane is completely undetectable. How would they even know when to attempt to "hack" it. Sure, they could spam garbage gps signals but they would have to have an idea of where and when.

And, even if it was truly a malfunction, how the hell would they just happen to find it in a vast desert when the thing is the same color as the ground?
 
They aren't claiming they broke the encryption on the communications and took control of it.

They are saying they jammed the communications, forced it into autopilot, and spoofed the GPS so it would land in iran.

This might be crazy, but I'd have a fail safe inside with a block of C4 attached to it.

If our military claims their GPS design can be jammed unintentionally by Lightsquared while commercial vendors claim to have designs that for $6 can't be jammed by Lightsquared the only logical takeaway is whatever GPS design our military uses is MUCH more susceptible to being interfered with than even consumer GPS devices.

If somebody trying to purposefully avoid interference like Lightsquared can still be claimed to be 'interfering', it stands to reason that if somebody like Iran WANTED to interfere it would be no problem at all.
 
More likely some new guy didn't configure it with a 'home' location and it just landed on it's own where it was.
 
Its nice to see you've volunteered to join the Armed Forces fight the evils in the world.

Didn't you read what he said? He wants to profit off of everyone's death and destruction, not cause them.

That's a sick-minded individual if you ask me.
 
Since they appear to have recovered it intact it was probably either given too them or they actually did manage to hack it; because I doubt we would just land it in Iran for any reason. A nosedive into the desert at it's top speed would be more likely if it was due too a mechanical problem that made it malfunction and unrecoverable.
 
This might be crazy, but I'd have a fail safe inside with a block of C4 attached to it.

The hard part would be how to failsafe the self-destruct. If all it takes is a jammer to make it land, then wouldn't the self destruct commands be jammed too?
 
Wasn't there studies a year or two ago that stated that most of the drones flying today are made with 1990s era hardware that was wide open and parts were becoming so cheap that you could build something to override the controls for a couple of hundred dollars?

That was just the video feed.
 
iran fooled the gps into fail safe mode making it land . a self destruct timer was not set .
if the plane is over due it will exsplode .destoying the camera equipment . carbon fiber is what this plane made of no top secret stuff. all soft ware is increpted with pgp .:eek:

this plane is being set up to drop their nuke on isreal. its i.d. . will allow it to pass it their air space unchallenged . ka--boom next week guys. alsoo why do we allow hundreds of iran kids to go to m.i.t school.:eek:
 
If our military claims their GPS design can be jammed unintentionally by Lightsquared while commercial vendors claim to have designs that for $6 can't be jammed by Lightsquared the only logical takeaway is whatever GPS design our military uses is MUCH more susceptible to being interfered with than even consumer GPS devices.

If somebody trying to purposefully avoid interference like Lightsquared can still be claimed to be 'interfering', it stands to reason that if somebody like Iran WANTED to interfere it would be no problem at all.

Not even close to the same thing.. Lightsquared issue is cochannel interference... Something that can be remedied with band pass filters or similar...

This would have been intentional on frequency interference... And actually pretty easy to do with the right resources which you can pick up anywhere if you have the money, hell I saw some of the equipment necessary on ebay a couple years ago...

And remember gps satellites are really far away, so capturing a receiver using terrestrial signals is not difficult...

Gps is all based on the time, so you could easily send out a signal to make a gps receiver drift or even think its on the other side of the planet... So first send it off course to get it where you want it, then make it think its climbing so the autopilot corrects by lowering altitude, keep doing that till it "lands"

Done
 
Military GPS is encrypted. There is a link on the third page of the article that sites a paper claiming that you could spoof military gps by simply repeating the encrypted signals, since GPS is calculated based on the time that it takes for the signal to get from satellite to receiver. The concept sounds plausible, except for the redundant navigation systems on an aircraft such as inertial navigation. Keep in mind as well that the paper is a proof of concept and has not been tested on any military craft.

Personally I don't think this is what the Iranians used that spoof, simply based on the quotes from the engineer. Based how his quotes, he doesn't even seem to realize that military GPS is encrypted (quote about how 'reprogramming the gps allowed them to avoid cracking encryption). Also his quotes about the crash being a result of altitude difference between the two locations contradicts the idea of 'delaying' signals to spoof encrypted gps. A delay to a signal is going to affect the z axis position of the craft, not just the x and y. So it wouldn't be a simple x/y remapping like he seems to think it is.
 
A blurb I read suggested it was direct to a location with the same altitude as home base and since it was in autonomous mode, went into landing sequence
 
Oh and the other thing I forgot to mention, in order to land the craft in another precise location, you would need to know the exact coordinates of the craft at any time. In order to delay the gps signals the proper amount. I would say at best, they could force it to crash somewhere in a pretty big target radius.
 
Military GPS is encrypted. There is a link on the third page of the article that sites a paper claiming that you could spoof military gps by simply repeating the encrypted signals, since GPS is calculated based on the time that it takes for the signal to get from satellite to receiver. The concept sounds plausible, except for the redundant navigation systems on an aircraft such as inertial navigation. Keep in mind as well that the paper is a proof of concept and has not been tested on any military craft.

Personally I don't think this is what the Iranians used that spoof, simply based on the quotes from the engineer. Based how his quotes, he doesn't even seem to realize that military GPS is encrypted (quote about how 'reprogramming the gps allowed them to avoid cracking encryption). Also his quotes about the crash being a result of altitude difference between the two locations contradicts the idea of 'delaying' signals to spoof encrypted gps. A delay to a signal is going to affect the z axis position of the craft, not just the x and y. So it wouldn't be a simple x/y remapping like he seems to think it is.

So jam L2 and it will probably fall back to L1 which is not encrypted...
 
this plane is being set up to drop their nuke on isreal. its i.d. . will allow it to pass it their air space unchallenged . ka--boom next week guys. alsoo why do we allow hundreds of iran kids to go to m.i.t school.:eek:

1) Iran doesnt have a working nuke

2) This drone has 1/10 the weight carrying capacity of a 1st generation nuke
 
Not even close to the same thing.. Lightsquared issue is cochannel interference... Something that can be remedied with band pass filters or similar...

This would have been intentional on frequency interference... And actually pretty easy to do with the right resources which you can pick up anywhere if you have the money, hell I saw some of the equipment necessary on ebay a couple years ago...

And remember gps satellites are really far away, so capturing a receiver using terrestrial signals is not difficult...

Gps is all based on the time, so you could easily send out a signal to make a gps receiver drift or even think its on the other side of the planet... So first send it off course to get it where you want it, then make it think its climbing so the autopilot corrects by lowering altitude, keep doing that till it "lands"

Done

I would think that the autopilot would trust the altimeter more than the GPS for altitude readings. The code would probably start raising some huge flags when you have vast differences between your GPS altitude than your altimeter.
 
1) Iran doesnt have a working nuke

2) This drone has 1/10 the weight carrying capacity of a 1st generation nuke

He was obviously being funny. Iran has long range missiles anyways and I'd imagine an first generation atomic bomb would be quite heavy for a drone to carry.
 
So jam L2 and it will probably fall back to L1 which is not encrypted...

From what I understand it is more likely to revert to Inertial Navigation than L1. That or switch to a 'circle' pattern.
 
Didn't you read what he said? He wants to profit off of everyone's death and destruction, not cause them.

That's a sick-minded individual if you ask me.

I don't know about that.

If it's going to happen, and somebody is going to profit, it might as well be me, right?
 
He was obviously being funny. Iran has long range missiles anyways and I'd imagine an first generation atomic bomb would be quite heavy for a drone to carry.

mkay, sometime I confuse less than obvious sarcasm with stupidity :D
 
It's disturbing to see how many of the 20-something nimrods on this site(as well as Anandtechs's forums) will cheer the capture of an American drone, and cluck-cluck about us "invading Iranian airspace". Those of us over 35 know exactly what kind of evil bastards the Iranian government is and has been throughout the past decades. They are the single main supporter and enabler of world-wide terrorism in the past 3 decades, but I guess it doesnt matter if mean ole' American is getting a "well deserved" black eye, does it? The attitude of the youth in America is not only frightening, it WILL lead to a terrible and violent downfall of our country and society.
 
GPS is encrypted and not only the codes change. This was a skunkworks aricraft. I find it hard to believe that could be compromised by GPS. It should have an INS system or another navigation system for redundancy and backup.

The whole thing about the GPS spoofing makes no sense to me. I guess if I wasn't an avionics tech I probably would've believed it.
 
I actually don't want to call it a hack, they just jammed the gps, most probably the idea came from when they got news about lightsquared interfering with GPS signals, tested what will happen if they screwed with the gps signals with a drone, boom it landed automatically, boom they now take claim that they have hacked it. ;) , well atleast military knows now what to do next, put a failsafe the makes the thing go boom or fries itself after lets say, 10-15mins maybe after it lands?. for safetly id go with the fries itself, for the lulz i want to make it go boom though, especially when its on naughty places like iran,lol
 
CSM and Iran are full of shit.

One the drones don't get instructions from the GPS sats. The use GPS for nav data to verify position. Sat Comms are used to feed guidance instructions from the pilots station normally located here in the States.

Even if GPS was blocked all advanced drones (think Predator and up) utilize a flight management system that takes multiple references. During the INIT POS (initial position) setup of the aircraft the pilot or operator verifies the Inertial Nav System, GPS and known location all state the same location, LAT/LON. After departure the FMS keeps referencing all nav sources including radio nav to determine position. So if one fails out or becomes unavailable (GPS drops depending on location) the pilot and aircraft are able to maintain the mission profile. Even if the Iranian super hacker guy bombarded the aircraft with confusing GPS the FMS would recognize the difference between the GPS and INS/Nav and alert the pilot then kick GPS nav offline until the GPS integrity comes back.

As for fail safes; it is possible to set a determined Lat/Long for the aircraft to immediately return to should Sat Comm drop or the aircraft get conflicting instructions. This has to be done "before" the failure and it is not always done. The drones either then fly until they run out of go juice, lose control or are shot down.

Internal software issues have dropped more aircraft than any hackers, but most drones have been lost due to mechanical failures mainly left turn syndrome. The only known successful hacking has been on the data feeds heading back to cc. Basically the video feeds.

In this case I would imagine the flight control system software went FUBAR and the Iranians were lucky enough for the aircraft to have a forced landing in their country and not be destroyed.

I would like to see pics of the lower fuselage, sensor package and lower wing skins then you can tell if it was hacked and landed or had an off airport landing.
 
It's disturbing to see how many of the 20-something nimrods on this site(as well as Anandtechs's forums) will cheer the capture of an American drone, and cluck-cluck about us "invading Iranian airspace". Those of us over 35 know exactly what kind of evil bastards the Iranian government is and has been throughout the past decades. They are the single main supporter and enabler of world-wide terrorism in the past 3 decades, but I guess it doesnt matter if mean ole' American is getting a "well deserved" black eye, does it? The attitude of the youth in America is not only frightening, it WILL lead to a terrible and violent downfall of our country and society.

Nobody likes the Iranian government. Ignoring history past 1979 is also pretty stupid, regardless of your age.
 
There seems to be some confusion in this thread.

Jamming =/= Spoofing.

Also, if you believe Iran's statements as fact, I have a bridge to sell you.
 
I hope they realize once the retard in office is out they'll most likely be on our list to invade, like it or not war creates jobs and we are good at it and Isreal is waiting for the chance to strike as well. I see a great year before us!
You want to kill people because it creates jobs? People like you shouldn't be allowed to speak. The FIRST thing you should know is that there are other ways to create jobs without taking the lives of others.


Its nice to see you've volunteered to join the Armed Forces fight the evils in the world.
Evils of the world? America/Israel are the terrorists, not Iran who has NEVER fought a war outside of its own borders. The same can not be said for America nor Israel, both of which kill innocent civilians and terrorize the world every single day.

I don't know about that.

If it's going to happen, and somebody is going to profit, it might as well be me, right?
Rather than stop the death of innocent people around the world for money, you choose to endorse it.

It's disturbing to see how many of the 20-something nimrods on this site(as well as Anandtechs's forums) will cheer the capture of an American drone, and cluck-cluck about us "invading Iranian airspace". Those of us over 35 know exactly what kind of evil bastards the Iranian government is and has been throughout the past decades. They are the single main supporter and enabler of world-wide terrorism in the past 3 decades, but I guess it doesnt matter if mean ole' American is getting a "well deserved" black eye, does it? The attitude of the youth in America is not only frightening, it WILL lead to a terrible and violent downfall of our country and society.
The attitude of the youth in America is one of peace and humanity. It is your stance that will lead to a terrible and violent downfall of the American country and society. Iran has never been in a war outside of its borders, and the ONLY reason that Iran has the government it has now is because of the OVERTHROW OF THE IRANIAN GOVERNMENT in the 1950's by the United States and Britain.
It's not the case that they "hate our freedom", it's the case that they hate that we kill and terrorize countries around the world.
The largest supporters of terrorism in the world are the United States, Israel and Britain.

People need to wake up and realize that America is a militaristic society(as evidenced by the above posts) and that it is teaching Americans to hate Arabs for no reason. The true enemy of the United States is those that teach contempt and fear of other human beings.
 
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