Ukrainians experience GPS spoofing: phones showing wrong location and time

The Ukrainian army has issued a warning about potential disruptions.

When you check your smartphone clock or find your location on a map, you’d probably expect the information to be correct.

However, things are trickier for those who live near war zones.

In the last couple of days, Ukrainian users have been sharing screenshots on social media of their map location showing that they are inside Russian territory.

According to the Kyiv Independent, some users also started to experience automatic time changes on their smartphones.

The Ukrainian armed forces issued a warning, claiming that electronic warfare systems may cause additional disruptions in the operation of smartphone clocks.

Electronic warfare systems are being used to counter Russian air attacks by interfering with drone navigation, causing the drones to veer off course during their approach.

This method, called GPS spoofing, tries to deceive a GPS receiver by transmitting fake signals that appear legitimate but contain incorrect location or timing information.

Since smartphones determine timezones based on geolocation, this may result in automatic clock switching when GPS spoofing is in effect.

Both the Ukrainian and Russian armies use various methods to trick enemy systems. While spoofing tries to make a GPS receiver calculate a false position, the purpose of jamming is to overpower GPS satellite signals.

Earlier this year, GPS jamming by Russia caused a temporary halt of commercial air traffic at at least one major commercial airport.