Iran captured U.S. spy drone

The U.S. spy drone that was recently been captured by Iranian authorities may have been tricked into landing in that country after being electronically ambushed. Electronic warfare experts in the country were able to cut off the drone's communications links and reconfigure its GPS (Global Positioning System) coordinates.

After that, the drone was thinking it was landing in U.S. base in Afghanistan when actually it was landing in Iran. The attack took advantage of known weaknesses in the drone's navigation system to spoof its landing coordinates. Security expert Ira Winkler says that one way of exploiting this weakness is to beam a stronger GPS signal than the signal from satellite. Because the GPS signals aren't encrypted, the stronger signal wins. The drone would pick up fake signal and think it is somewhere else. U.S. drones have already been attacked in similar fashion. Two years ago, militants in Iraq and Afghanistan intercepted live video feeds from U.S. drones. This attack could have given them vital information on targets under U.S. surveillance. Despite the fact that the U.S. officials knew about the drone’s vulnerability little was done to encrypt signal. Original news was published at Network World on Security web site.