Security News

Finnish govt agency warns of unusual aircraft GPS interference
2022-03-11 15:55

Finland's Transport and Communications Agency, Traficom, has issued a public announcement informing of an unusual spike in GPS interference near the country's eastern border. Notably, on Sunday, several Transaviabaltika planes flying to Savonlinna, Finland, were forced to return to Tallinn, Estonia, due to a failure in the onboard GPS navigation system.

Pen Test Partners: Anyone could view Gumtree users' GPS location by pressing F12
2021-12-15 15:31

UK online used goods bazaar Gumtree exposed its users' home addresses in the source code of its webpages, and then tried to squirm out of a bug bounty after infosec bods alerted it to the flaw. British company Pen Test Partners spotted the data leakage, which meant anyone could view a Gumtree user's name and location by pressing F12 in their web browser.

CISA: GPS software bug may cause unexpected behavior this Sunday
2021-10-22 12:37

The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency warned that GPS deices might experience issues over the weekend because of a timing bug impacting Network Time Protocol servers running the GPS Daemon software. "The Network Time Protocol has been critical in ensuring time is accurately kept for various systems businesses and organizations rely on. Authentication mechanisms such as Time-based One-Time Password and Kerberos also rely heavily on time. As such, should there be a severe mismatch in time, users would not be able to authenticate and gain access to systems." - SANS ISC. The bug is set to trigger this Sunday, on October 24th, and the implications are somewhat unpredictable as it could cause systems to become unresponsive or unavailable.

GPS Vulnerabilities
2021-02-22 12:17

Really good op-ed in the New York Times about how vulnerable the GPS system is to interference, spoofing, and jamming - and potential alternatives. The 2018 National Defense Authorization Act included funding for the Departments of Defense, Homeland Security and Transportation to jointly conduct demonstrations of various alternatives to GPS, which were concluded last March.

AT&T tracked its own sales bods using GPS, secretly charged them $135 a month to do so, lawsuit claims
2020-05-19 11:10

AT&T tracks its sales reps to make sure they keep to its schedule and then charges them for doing so, claims one of its "In-home experts" Daniel Gunther. He alleges the cellular network uses the GPS in its cars to keep tabs on sales reps, hassling them if they spend longer than the allocated 45 minutes with a customer, and coming down on them if they are suspected to be using the car for personal reasons.

AT&T tracked its own sales bods using GPS, secretly charged them $135 a month to do so, lawsuit claims
2020-05-19 11:10

AT&T tracks its sales reps to make sure they keep to its schedule and then charges them for doing so, claims one of its "In-home experts" Daniel Gunther. He alleges the cellular network uses the GPS in its cars to keep tabs on sales reps, hassling them if they spend longer than the allocated 45 minutes with a customer, and coming down on them if they are suspected to be using the car for personal reasons.

Taking a GPS tracker off your car isn’t ‘theft,’ court rules
2020-02-26 11:03

A suspected meth dealer is off the hook for at least one of the charges he's facing: that he "Stole" the GPS device that police stuck on his car to track his movements. So police applied for warrants to search both Heuring's home and his father's barn, where they suspected that Heuring had put the GPS device.

IoT Smartwatch Exposes Kids’ Personal, GPS Data
2019-11-27 15:28

Yet another connected smartwatch for children has been discovered exposing personal and location data of kids - opening the door for various insidious threats.

GPS Manipulation
2019-11-21 12:26

Long article on the manipulation of GPS in Shanghai. It seems not to be some Chinese military program, but ships who are stealing sand. The Shanghai "crop circles," which somehow spoof each vessel...

GPS tracker from stalked woman’s car led to indictment of 20 mobsters
2019-10-08 11:14

Girlfriend found it, girlfriend popped it onto a city bus, gadget got found, multiyear investigation got launched, 20 got indicted.