Signal spoofing is a growing, sophisticated threat to Australia’s digital infrastructure. Addressing it requires multi-layered technical, operational, and strategic responses, with a focus on detection, resilience, and collaboration across industry and government.
GNSS Under Siege: Global threats and impact on Australian Telecommunications
Precise time is the invisible backbone of Australia’s digital networks.
Every packet, mobile call, and cloud transaction relies on accurate timing, sourced from satellites orbiting 20,000 km above us. These satellites broadcast Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) signals—GPS, Galileo, BeiDou—delivering position, navigation, and timing (PNT) data are essential for national infrastructure. GNSS signals underpin everything from 5G cell tower synchronisation to NBN broadband distribution and financial transaction timestamping. Yet these signals are weak, unencrypted and are increasingly under attack.
The Global Crisis: Escalating GNSS Attacks
Over the past 18 months, GNSS jamming and spoofing have surged globally. Thousands of commercial aircraft have reported navigation anomalies, with military-grade jamming affecting civilian airspace. Spoofing—transmitting false satellite signals—has misled ships, aircraft, and satellites, causing widespread disruption.
In early 2025, Northern Europe recorded over 120,000 flight incidents involving GPS interference. Australian aircraft have faced similar threats near the South China Sea and Western Australia.
What’s unfolding is an undeclared electronic warfare campaign, where the target isn’t a computer network it’s the timing fabric of global connectivity.
For Local Operators: GNSS is a Critical Time Reference
- Networks use Precision Time Protocol (PTP) and Network Time Protocol (NTP) to synchronise infrastructure.
- Disrupted or falsified GNSS signals can cause:
- 5G handover failures, resulting in call drops and degraded throughput
- NBN node desynchronisation, leading to packet loss and service degradation
- Data centre timestamp drift, corrupting logs and audits
- Billing and transaction system errors, risking regulatory non-compliance
A single spoofed GNSS feed can desynchronise critical services nationwide long before an operator realises there is an issue.
Defending Against GNSS Threats: Attack Propagation, Detection Gaps, and Building Resilience
GNSS interference is a data integrity attack on a trusted system.
Unlike traditional cyber intrusions, GNSS targets the physics layer. Falsified time or location can cause even well-secured systems to make incorrect decisions, such as:
- Telecom grandmaster clocks issuing time based on spoofed signals
- Intrusion detection systems mis-sequencing logs
- PTP clients drifting into holdover mode
GNSS is now viewed as a Tier 0 trust dependency, as vital as identity services or cryptographic keys.
GNSS receivers, often rack-mounted at towers or core sites, are vulnerable to RF interference.
Attacks can:
- Cause loss of satellite lock (jamming), forcing reliance on internal oscillators
- Accept false timecodes (spoofing), silently drifting network clocks
Timing anomalies cascade through PTP clients and switches, corrupting thousands of downstream devices. These issues are subtle and often go undetected.
Most networks monitor uptime and latency, not time integrity.
Effective detection requires:
- Raw receiver telemetry (satellite counts, signal-to-noise ratios, PPS offsets, RAIM flags)
- Spectrum sensors (SDR nodes) to detect GNSS band interference
- PPS deviation monitoring between redundant time sources
- Cross-source correlation (GNSS vs. PTP-over-fibre or atomic oscillators)
Without these measures, spoofing attacks can cause prolonged misalignment.
How operators can reduce exposure via multi-layered timing resilience.
Multi-source Time: Use diverse time sources (GNSS, PTP-over-fibre) with automatic arbitration.
Holdover and Stability: Deploy high-stability oscillators (OCXO, CSAC) to maintain accuracy during outages.
Diversity in Design: Separate timing grandmasters by geography and vendor; use shielded antennas and filters.
Monitoring and Response: Establish PNT dashboards, integrate alerts, and train engineers to recognize GNSS degradation.
Incident Collaboration: Coordinate with spectrum authorities for detection and attribution.
Lead the Change: Strategies to Safeguard the Integrity of Australia’s Digital Infrastructure
Australia’s future networks must be fast and resilient to deception.
Australia is pioneering sovereign emerging technology alternatives:
- Quantum-based navigation systems (e.g., Q-CTRL) using quantum sensors for inertial mapping
- Resilient PTP networks via dark fibre
- AI-driven spectrum analytics for real-time spoofing detection
Adoption in civil networks lags behind defence and progress is accelerating.
Are you leading or chasing?
- Inventory all GNSS dependencies
- Enable raw GNSS telemetry logging
- Deploy PTP holdover and secondary time feeds
- Simulate GNSS outages in testing
- Establish national coordination for interference reporting
As you reflect on your position and consider what’s next, ask yourself: Who can help you reach the next level faster, more securely and with lasting impact?
GNSS spoofing is not a distant threat, it’s a present and escalating risk
Wipro can help Senior Security Leaders defend against GNSS Spoofing from assessment and monitoring to resilience design and incident response.
GNSS Dependency Assessment: Conduct inventory and map all GNSS-dependent systems, identifying critical timing touchpoints across networks and infrastructure.
Advanced Monitoring Solutions: Deploy and integrate raw GNSS telemetry logging, spectrum sensors, and PPS deviation monitoring to detect anomalies and spoofing attempts in real time.
Multi-layered Timing Resilience Design: Architect and implement diverse timing sources (GNSS, PTP-over-fibre, atomic clocks) and high-stability oscillators to ensure continuity during outages or attacks.
Simulation + Incident Response: Facilitate purple-team exercises simulating GNSS outages and spoofing scenarios, helping organizations validate their resilience and response playbooks.
National + Industry Coordination: Establish channels for rapid reporting, triangulation, and attribution of GNSS interference, working with government and industry partners.
Technology Enablement: Advise on and deploy emerging technologies such as quantum-based navigation, resilient PTP networks, and AI-driven spectrum analytics to future-proof timing infrastructure.
Strategic Consulting + Governance: Provide executive-level guidance, risk assessments, and policy development to embed GNSS resilience into organisational security strategy and compliance frameworks.
GNSS interference undermines trust across satellites, planes, and phone towers. Prioritising resilience will set new benchmarks for network assurance and national security.
Realise Your Bold Ambitions
Wipro’s global team of 8,000+ cybersecurists provide end-to-end protection for businesses, focusing on AI-driven threat detection, prevention, and managed services to improve security operations.
Eight global Cyber Defense Centers are used for 24/7 monitoring, threat intelligence, and incident response, as well as Wipro Shelde, a sovereign cybersecurity offering for government and critical infrastructure clients.
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