GPS Jamming Explained: The Invisible War Threatening Global Shipping, Why India Should Be Concerned?
The Centre has confirmed that 1,951 cases of GPS interference were reported between November 2023 and November 2025.
Published : March 11, 2026 at 8:04 PM IST
By Saurabh Shukla
New Delhi: A silent form of warfare is increasingly disrupting the global transportation network. This is known as GPS jamming and spoofing. This electronic interference is emerging as one of the most troubling side effects of modern conflicts. Data suggest that GPS jamming has risen 55 percent in a week in the Middle East Gulf.
Recent developments in West Asia have highlighted how dangerous the problem has become. Within 24 hours of the first US-Israeli strikes on Iran ships operating in the region suddenly found that their navigation systems were started behaving strangely. Vessels at sea were shown on digital maps as being located at airports, nuclear power plants or even deep inside Iranian territory.
The ships themselves had not moved. Instead the signals guiding their navigation systems had been manipulated. Experts say the incidents were caused by widespread jamming and spoofing of satellite navigation signals. This is a tactic increasingly used in conflict zones to disrupt drones and precision guided weapons.
What Is GPS Jamming and Spoofing?
Modern navigation systems rely on Global Navigation Satellite Systems (GNSS), which are networks of satellites that transmit signals allowing ships aircraft and vehicles to calculate their exact position on Earth. But these signals are surprisingly fragile.
Militaries can interfere with GPS signals mainly in two ways - jamming and spoofing. Jamming happens when powerful radio signals block the satellite signals that navigation systems rely on making it impossible for ships or aircraft to determine their position while spoofing is more deceptive. In this case fake GPS signals are sent out to mislead receivers making them calculate the wrong location.
Recent incidents in the Persian Gulf showed how disruptive this can be with some ships appearing in completely impossible locations on tracking systems, leaving both crews and monitoring agencies confused about their actual position.
Over 1,600 Ships Affected
According to maritime intelligence firm Windward, more than 1,650 vessels experienced GPS and AIS interference on March 7. This represents 55 percent increase compared with the previous week. Vessels were falsely positioned across both land and sea locations stretching from Kuwait through the Arabian Gulf and into the Gulf of Oman near Muscat, it adds.
Electronic interference with ship's AIS was already endemic in the region before the launch of Operation Epic Fury. Nearly 1,100 ships were impacted within 24 hours after the US attacked Iran on Feb 28. That number has now risen to more than 1,650, the report added. Windward has also identified at least 30 clusters where ships’ AIS are being jammed, including across the Gulf of Oman, and areas on land and sea within the Middle East Gulf, especially near areas where port and facility infrastructure has been attacked or near military areas.
A week ago, clusters were mainly crop circle like patterns, but have since evolved into zig zag type lines, with ship's signals thrown across multiple locations within a 24 hour period. There was mass AIS interference at the bunkering hub of Fujairah, from where ships have since dispersed after fuel tanks were attacked on March 3 and amid warnings that congested areas carry greater risks of attack.
As per a March 10 report by Windward, commercial activity through the Strait of Hormuz declined further on March 9. Only a single outbound Iranian-flagged vessel was recorded, while no inbound movements were observed.
While the latest disruptions are linked to tensions around Iran, GPS interference is not a new phenomenon. Experts say the problem has been growing steadily since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022, when drones became widely used in warfare.
This is because drones rely heavily on GPS signals and militaries began aggressively jamming satellite navigation systems to defend against them.
Rising GPS Interference Risks
Maritime and strategic analyst Shyam Kumar, a retired Captain of the Indian Navy told ETV Bharat that signal jamming poses a serious risk because it can lead to errors in determining a ship’s exact position. If the crew is not alert or prepared to deal with such disruptions, the chances of navigational mistakes increase. He added that interference can also affect the functioning of certain onboard equipment and even some survival systems, he added.
He also stressed that he scale of the problem is significant. The Indian government has confirmed that 1,951 cases of GPS interference were reported between November 2023 and November 2025.
The threat is not limited to maritime navigation. Airlines are also increasingly reporting GPS disruptions. According to International Air Transport Association (IATA) incidents involving aircraft losing GPS signals have risen more than 220 percent between 2021 and 2024. Pilots describe situations where cockpit navigation display drift away from reality. In some cases aircraft appear miles away from their actual flight path and altitude readings become unreliable and systems issue false terrain warnings.
Captain Shyam Kumar also recalled one of the most visible incidents occurred during the Delhi airport crisis in November 2025 when intense GPS spoofing disrupted operations at Indira Gandhi International Airport. More than 800 flights were delayed or diverted with several pilots reporting that their navigation systems showed them nearly 2,500 km away from their actual position. Similar disruption were reported at other major airports, including Mumbai, Bengaluru, Hyderabad, Chennai, Kolkata and Amritsar.
GPS interference has also affected military operations. In April 2025, six Indian Air Force aircraft C-130J and C-17 transport planes involved in earthquake relief operations in Myanmar experienced state grade GPs spoofing. The aircraft reported sudden altitude mismatches and navigation glitches, forcing pilots to switch to inertial navigation systems to continue the mission, added Kumar.
How to Respond Incorrect Data?
When asked how crews respond if a ship or aircraft suddenly begins receiving incorrect location data, Captain Shyam Kumar said the first step is to reconfirm the vessel’s position using alternative methods and double-check all positional references, especially in areas where signal interference is known to occur.
If GPS or GNSS signals fail, the Officer of the Watch (OOW) immediately informs the Master and switches to backup navigation methods such as a secondary GPS system or dead reckoning (DR). At the same time, vigilance on the bridge is increased, he Kumar.
He also noted that in such situations, crews rely on traditional navigation techniques—including manual radar plotting, visual position fixes, and depth soundings—to determine their location. If the vessel is operating in restricted or busy waters, the crew also informs Vessel Traffic Services (VTS) or relevant local authorities to ensure safe navigation.
Why GPS Signals are so Vulnerable?
One reason the problem is difficult to control is that satellite signals reaching Earth are extremely weak. GPS satellites orbit about 20,000 kilometres above the planet. By the time their signals reach receivers on the ground, they can easily be overwhelmed by relatively small electronic transmitters.
A basic GPS receiver needs signals from at least four satellites to determine its exact position. If those signals are blocked or replaced with fake ones, the navigation system can quickly produce incorrect results.
Why this Concerns India?
For India, the risks are far from theoretical. The country is closely tied to the same shipping lanes where electronic interference is now being reported. Data of The Ministry of Ports, Shipping, and Waterways suggest that nearly 95 percent of India’s trade by volume and about 70 percent by value moves by sea and more than 50 percent crude oil imports pass through the Strait of Hormuz. Indian merchant vessels also operate regularly in Gulf waters.
So, any disruption to navigation systems in this region can therefore have direct consequences for India’s energy supplies and cargo movement. If ships are unable to navigate the strait safely, delays and route diversions could quickly drive up freight rates and insurance costs.
To reduce reliance on foreign satellite systems, India has developed NavIC (Navigation with Indian Constellation). NavIC is a regional satellite navigation network operated by ISRO, designed to provide positioning services across India and surrounding regions.
The system is already used in Indian Navy operations, disaster warning systems, fishing vessel tracking and some smartphones. However most international shipping and aviation systems still rely primarily on GPS and other global satellite networks.
Retired Navy Captain said that Indian shipping should increasingly rely on NavIC which is India’s indigenously developed satellite navigation system, especially in conflict prone regions where GPS interference has become more common. While NavIC is considered reliable he stressed that crews must still remain cautious, as spoofing and signal manipulation can occur in war zones or even through tactics used by pirates.
Shyam Kumar stressed that both ship and aircraft crews are trained to handle such disruptions through alternate navigation methods. With signal interference becoming a reality, regular emergency drills are essential so that crews remain prepared to operate without satellite navigation when required.
Kumar also added that despite technological disruptions risks can be managed through professional training and discipline. He believes Indian maritime training institutions should place greater emphasis on traditional position-fixing techniques. Recalling his own experience as a warship captain, he said he would sometimes instruct his navigation team to avoid using GPS for a few hours during watch duty. Instead, they would determine the ship’s position using visual cues, radar and celestial navigation, and later compare the results with GPS data to build confidence in these methods.
A New Reality for Global Transport
As conflicts become more technologically sophisticated, electronic interference is likely to become a permanent feature of modern warfare. The widespread use of GPS guided drones and missiles means militaries have strong incentives to jam satellite signals. But the unintended victims are often civilian ships, aircraft and supply chains.
For countries like India heavily dependent on global trade routes the challenge will be to strengthen navigation resilience before disruptions become more widespread. Because in the increasingly contested digital battlespace even something as routine as finding your exact location on a map can no longer be taken for granted.
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