Attacks on GPS

Why the satellites are increasingly going crazy

Since the 1990s, the Global Positioning System, better known as GPS, developed by the US Department of Defense, has been used worldwide by civilians, vehicles, ships and even aircraft for navigation. However, the system has recently been experiencing an increasing number of malfunctions. Krone+ explains the reasons and the dangerous consequences.

GPS has been practically omnipresent since the advent of the first smartphones and smartwatches: we use the satellite navigation system - mostly via map services such as Google Maps - to guide us from A to B, whether by car, bike or on foot.

Many ships and airplanes also use the technology developed by the US Department of Defense in the 1970s, which is now often synonymous with other satellite navigation systems such as the Russian GLONASS, the European Galileo or the Chinese BeiDou, which was approved for civilian use by then US President Ronald Reagan in 1983.

However, the satellites have recently been failing more and more frequently. Mostly for political reasons.