Israel blamed Russia for jamming at Israeli Ben Gurion airport

Israel blamed Russia for jamming at Israeli Ben Gurion airport that disrupted GPS signals, but the Kremlin denies its involvement in the attacks.

Starting from early June, a significant jamming activity has interfered with GPS signals at Israeli Ben Gurion airport causing severe problems to pilots and aircraft.

Israel’s Airports Authority confirmed that the disruption of GPS signals had a “significant impact” on the operations at the airport.

At the time of writing, Israeli authorities are still investigating the source of the jamming activity.

Fortunately, the attacks did not cause any accidents at the airport, explained the Airports Authority. Pilots were forced to use the alternative Instrument Landing System when approaching and landing at the airport.

Russia denied to have carried out the jamming attacks, Russia’s ambassador to Israel defined the accusation as “fake news” that and could not be “taken seriously”.

Experts pointed out that interference with the GPS system only affected flights in the sky over the airport, ground-based sensors were not impacted.

“The Israeli Airline Pilots Association said the GPS problems were a “spoofing” attack that produces incorrect location data.” reported the BBC. “This can mean receivers on planes sometimes reporting their location as miles away from where they actually are. BBC Monitoring said Israeli IDF radio had quoted “high-ranking” sources as blaming Russia for the continuing disruption.”

According to the BBC, the jamming activity could be linked to systems used by the Russia army to protect its planes at the Hmeimim airbase in Syria. The Russian military base is located about 350km north of Ben Gurion.

Russia is operating in Syria due to its political and commercial interests in the country, it deployed airbases and a naval base its territory.

The sky over Syria is crowded, aircraft belonging to the US-led coalition were often involved in operations against the Islamic State.

In the past, Russia was already involved in jamming attacks, jamming systems are an essential component of the Russian military strategy that aims to prevent attacks against its troops in the area.

In November 2015, Russia announced the deployment of jamming systems in Syria to protect its air forces and prevent attacks against its aircraft.

“It documented more than 10,000 separate incidents of GPS disruption and said Russia was “pioneering” the technique to “protect and promote its strategic interests”.” concludes the BBC.

“Some of the disruption helped to keep drones away from Russian airports, said the report, but it was also used to project a bubble around senior government figures when they visited sensitive locations.

[adrotate banner=”9″]

[adrotate banner=”12″]

Pierluigi Paganini

(Security Affairs – jamming systems, electronic warfare)

[adrotate banner=”5″]

[adrotate banner=”13″]