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AIS "extremely vulnerable to hackers"

3K views 17 replies 10 participants last post by  Uricanejack 
#1 ·
#2 ·
It must be a slow news day, I saw these articles on several sites this morning, including BBC.

How I dislike some of these sensationalistic reports. While basically true, the second headline is patently false - they did not hijack anything, they spoofed signals. And if hackers only recently found out how to do this, instead of years ago on DAY 1 of the AIS signal standards having been published, they don't deserve the title "hacker".

The same concepts apply to many such open systems including GPS signals and ATIS.

With a bit of work they could spoof a phantom ship and a phantom track - but the example of "PWNED" is, in security terms, a joke. It uses signals to marinetraffic.com, which is not an official AIS tracking site but one that uses private feeds. I bet that the time signals on the spoofed messages for that track are only seconds apart. Even an unsophisticated AIS receiver would show a speed of several thousand miles an hour for that ship.

While there are some malicious things one could do with big ships and fake Class "A" proximity signals, I think I'll continue to sleep easy since they would need powerful and sophisticated equipment to "jam" a valid AIS signal.
 
#3 ·
Yes now someone has been able to play with AIS I think the whole system is vulnerable and should be shut down immediaetly. Anyway, its really only the CIA who tracks anyone. Everyone knows no ships actually use AIS, and even if they did they would filter out everyone because it would just be too horrid for an alarm to go off.

I have moved firmly into the Internet Anti AIS camp and would much rather die at sea than to use one.


Mark
 
#4 · (Edited)
Mark - I agree, and because of the proven hacking of GPS signals I'm going to revert to my sextant and since people can fake voices on the VHF and SSB I'm getting rid of my Marconi units, too. :)

And if I get lost, I'll remove my aluminum foil hat and just shout out some special keywords so that the NSA can track me.
 
#8 · (Edited)
Actually, you make a valid point. Given that AIS tracks are now, thanks to products like OpenCPN, at least, if not more widely referred to by the captains and crews of 21st century shipping than radar is, I'm sure they'd share your thoughts as they steer through known pirate zones.

Banning/locking out sites like Marine Traffic :p might be part of a solution but, given that AIS is essentially a ship-to-ship communications system that (like radio) functions by everyone being able to "non-securely" receive and transmit messages, I can't see how changing the protocol to make it more "secure" (whatever that entails) would help anyone anywhere - pirates equipped with a valid AIS receiver would still be able to track their targets without difficulty once they got in range of the AIS signals.

Maybe, in this case, locking up the researchers for tampering with a marine safety system is a better course of action. :cool:
 
#7 ·
Wow, relax guys. Even accounting for the sarcasm you sound a little sensitive about this. You'd think someone called your kid ugly or something.

I don't read it as a reflection on the inherent value of AIS. Every system has room for improvement. All they've done here is identify a behavior of the system that might be a liability under extraordinary circumstances.

The rub will be if they decide to address it, and it results in existing hardware being incompatible with what everyone's already invested in.

From MIT Technology Review
The researchers attempted to notify several international marine and communication authorities, but only received a response from the International Telecommunications Union, a United Nations agency that deals with global communications policy. "They seem to be on board with changing the protocol," says Wilhoit, "but it's one of those foundational problems that will take time to fix." AIS equipment has the protocol built in, so rolling out an improved form of AIS requires replacing existing equipment.
Ship Tracking Hack Makes Tankers Vanish from View | MIT Technology Review
 
#10 ·
I don't get what the big deal is here. People can also issue hoax mayday calls on other VHF channels and cause massive disruption. It happens occasionally, but not often. The AIS "hacking" that is described here is similar - you can send out false digital signals on on channels 87 and 88, and you can intentionally synchronize your signals with other ships to block their AIS transmissions. But it's really only the digital equivalent of babbling inappropriate stuff on the other voice channels.

As with the other VHF channels, I would expect that the USCG has sensing equipment that can triangulate the location of the transmitters for these false signals. And since AIS needs to re-transmit its info every 2 to 10 seconds, those transmissions may actually be much EASIER to locate than a single hoax voice transmission.

This is just a long-winded way of saying that VHF radio has never been a fully secure system, but that hasn't prevented it from being a useful system. Maybe I'm just naive, but it seems to me that the same might hold true for AIS.
 
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#12 ·
As with the other VHF channels, I would expect that the USCG has sensing equipment that can triangulate the location of the transmitters for these false signals. And since AIS needs to re-transmit its info every 2 to 10 seconds, those transmissions may actually be much EASIER to locate than a single hoax voice transmission.
Yes. Radio direction finding (RDF) is built into Rescue 21. Some USCG small boats and even Towboat/US towboats have RDF capability.

Pseudo-doppler RDF is both state-of-the-art and inexpensive. You can build one yourself for about $300US and use any FM radio for direction finding. It's fun. Some ham radio clubs have radio fox hunts that use a number of different technologies, some quite simple, to good effect.
 
#11 ·
I've experienced the slow process of changing standards before, so I'm not going to hold my breath until the ITU or IMO changes the AIS protocal. I'm certain that manufacturers will put in some basic error-checking firmware sometime to ensure that single AIS broadcasts or subsequent messages with conflicting information or boat speeds in excess of MACH 1 will be filtered out or somehow marked as "suspect".

I was being very tongue-in-cheek and believe that Mark was as well regarding using, or not using, electronics aboard. I singlehand and feel that my AIS (transmitter) is my most important nighttime tool. Since the IMO doesn't require me to transmit I can easily turn off my signal if I feel it prudent.
 
#16 ·
Here are some good thoughts in reply to all the Buzz about

portvision.com/news---events/press-releases---news/bid/343898/AIS-Hacking-Buzz-Hype-and-Facts"]AIS Hacking
Good article. It still fails to mention that in order to spoof an AIS signal, the rogue transmitter needs to continuously send out false data out every few seconds. This makes them an easy target for being discovered (and ultimately apprehended) through RDF.

This makes AIS much harder to spoof without being caught. Someone wanting to cause massive disruption and get away with it would be much more likely to be successful by making a single mayday call on channel 16. That seems to happen a couple times a year - far more frequently than any know cases of AIS spoofing.
 
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