by MTHULISI SIBANDA
JOHANNESBURG, (CAJ News) – ALMOST 4 000 global navigation satellite systems (GNSS) receivers are vulnerable to attacks on the internet in 2024.
This puts organisations and users at risk.
Kaspersky, which made the findings at the recent Security Analyst Summit, said this could be mitigated by ensuring GNSS receivers are inaccessible from outside networks, and by employing robust authentication mechanisms to access these systems.
GNSS are groups of satellite positioning systems, including GPS (US), GLONASS (Russia), Galileo (EU), BeiDou Navigation Satellite System (BDS, China), Navigation with Indian Constellation (NavIC, India) and Quazi-Zenith Satellite System (QZSS, Japan).
These systems are used for positioning, navigation and timing in agriculture, finance, transportation, mobile communications, banking and other industries.
“GNSS receivers connected to the web can be vulnerable to attacks,” said Maria Isabel Manjarrez, Security Researcher at Kaspersky GReAT.
She said most of the receivers analysed ran various open-source and proprietary Linux-based systems, with some also running Windows.
“Since these devices use different versions of operating systems, it makes the attack surface very broad,” Manjarrez said.
The expert appealed for timely and proactive security measures to mitigate this threat.
– CAJ News