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North Korean hackers.5 Later this year, a ship in the Black Sea reported to the U.S. Coast Guard
Navigation Center that its GPS system had been disrupted and that over 20 ships in the same area had
been similarly affected.6 In Asian waters, deadly collisions happened twice in two months; In June 2017,
the USS Fitzgerald was struck by a container ship off the coast of Japan, killing 7 sailors. Later during
the year, an oil tanker smashed the USS John S. McCain near Malaysian coast and 10 sailors died.7

There were also two other lesser-known incidents in 2017: in January, the USS Antietam ran aground
near its base in Japan and in May the USS Lake Champlain collided with a South Korean fishing vessel.8
Consequently, Vice Admiral Joseph Aucoin was relieved of his duty as commander of the U.S. 7th Fleet,
the largest forward-deployed U.S. fleet based in Japan and covering Asia.9

The causes of all these incidents are not clear. Some experts blame the weather, the heavily reliance on
technology, the feeble signal of GPS, cyberattacks, the diminution of crew members or the high pace of
deployment lacking training and maintenance. Regarding the number of incidents in a less-than-one-year
period and the highly disputed regions where incidents happened (South East Asia and East Asia), the
theory of a deliberated influence on navigation systems through cyberattacks is legitimate, especially
when the navigation system used is analyzed.

Ships orientate themselves through Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) with many countries
using their own: GPS for the U.S., GLONASS for Russia, GALILEO for the E.U., QZSS for Japan, BeiDou
for China, and NAVIC for India. Although precise to a few meters, this technology is not highly secure
because the message is feeble and can be hacked. The same year of these incidents, a security
researcher based in France was able to enter the satellite communications system of a ship: Through
Shodan, a specific search engine that can reveal connected devices, and by entering a simple username
(admin) and password (1234), he accessed the communication center of a commercial ship and posted
his performance on Twitter: “I’m connected to a mother****ing ship as admin right now. Hacking ships is
easy”.10

New Alternatives

To prevent this over-dependency on GNSS for Positioning, Navigation and Timing (PNT), some states
are developing alternatives that rely on radio frequency, an old technology used since WWII. One of

5 SAUL Jonathan. “Cyber threats prompt return of radio for ship navigation”, Reuters, Aug 7, 2017
https://in.reuters.com/article/us-shipping-gps-cyber-idINKBN1AN0HT
6 Ibid.
7 FIFIELD Anna. “Bodies of all 10 sailors missing on USS John S. McCain have been recovered”, The Washington Post, Aug 27, 2017
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/bodies-of-all-10-sailors-missing-on-uss-john-s-mccain-have-been-recovered/2017/08/27/a2af6c4a-8b8c-11e7-
a2b0-e68cbf0b1f19_story.html
8 BARANIUK Chris. “Why it’s not surprising that ship collisions still happen”, BBC, Aug 22, 2017
http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20170822-why-its-not-surprising-that-ship-collisions-still-happen
9 AFP. “U.S. Warship Collisions Raise Cyberattack Fears”, Security Week, Aug 23, 2017
http://www.securityweek.com/us-warship-collisions-raise-cyberattack-fears
10 CHAMBERS Sam. “Ship’s satellite communication system hacked with ease”, Splash 24/7, Jul 19, 2017
http://splash247.com/ships-satellite-communication-system-hacked-ease/

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