Vulnerability of Smartphones on GNSS Simplistic Spoofing Attack

With the development of new operating systems’ versions, smartphones are becoming more and more resistant to simplistic Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) spoofing attacks. However, the assessment of the resistance of the devices to the spoofing attacks is actual research topic. In this paper, the impact of a simplistic spoofing attack on a GPS unit, which provides location and navigation services, integrated into smartphones is investigated. Furthermore, simple and portable GPS spoofer is designed by using low-cost software-defined radio HackRF One and GPS-SDRSIM simulator. This paper contributes in range analysis of spoofer depending on different power levels and distances to smartphones. All experiments are successfully conducted on different smartphones whose location, date and time are spoofed in indoor environment. Results show the assessment of the resistance on simplistic spoofing attacks for different mobile operation systems considering different distances and transmitter power levels.