Students hijacked a US military drone by spoofing GPS signals with $1000 of easily obtained equipment.
Students from the University of Texas at Austin managed to take control of an aerial drone’s course by spoofing the GPS signals it used for guidance.
With about $1000 worth of radio and computer equipment they were able to seize control of a multi-million dollar piece of technology often deployed by the military.
The techniques are explained in this paper [pdf].
The government became concerned about the vulnerability of drone aircraft after it became apparent that Iran had most likely taken control of a US drone and crashed it in Iranian territory several months ago.
The students used GPS equipment to trick the drone into mistaking their misleading signal for the satellite signal. This allowed them to lead the drone astray quite easily. The aircraft employs the same unencrypted GPS signals that government vehicles do.
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