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Rapid detection of GNSS time synchronization attacks via the enhanced code and carrier Doppler consistency test

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Abstract

Many critical infrastructures, such as smart grids, communication systems, and industrial networks, rely on the global navigation satellite system (GNSS) to ensure accurate time synchronization. However, the vulnerability of GNSS receivers to time synchronization attacks (TSAs) poses a significant threat to these infrastructures, potentially leading to severe consequences. Thus, it is imperative to promptly detect TSAs before they have an impact. We propose a method called the enhanced code and carrier Doppler consistency test (E-CCDCT) to address this issue. The proposed method monitors the consistency between the code Doppler shift and carrier Doppler shift to rapidly detect any inconsistency between them caused by a TSA. An additional advantage of E-CCDCT is its ability to provide early warning if a TSA signal attempts phase alignment before spoofing. Experiments for comparison with off-the-shelf TSA detection techniques were conducted using the Texas Spoofing Test Battery datasets. The results confirm that the proposed method exhibits superior detection speed compared to other methods. Furthermore, the proposed method achieves a detection probability of at least 90% at a false alarm rate of 0.1%. Consequently, this method offers exceptional efficiency and accuracy and can serve as a valuable complement to existing TSA detection techniques.

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Data availability

The Texas Spoofing Test Battery datasets are provided by the Radionavigation Laboratory of the University of Texas at Austin and can be downloaded directly from https://radionavlab.ae.utexas.edu/texbat/.

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Acknowledgements

This work was supported in part by the Shenzhen Science and Technology Plan Project, Grant No. ZDSYS20210623091807023 and in part by the Shenzhen Science and Technology Program, Grant No.GXWD20201231165807008, 20200830225317001.

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FF presented the basic idea of the manuscript and wrote the main manuscript text. ZC and LC contributed to guide the experiments and provided comments on the manuscript. XZ contributed to the discussion about the content and revised the manuscript. All authors have read and agree to the published version of the manuscript.

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Correspondence to Xiangwei Zhu.

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The authors declare no conflict of interest.

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Feng, F., Chen, Z., Chen, L. et al. Rapid detection of GNSS time synchronization attacks via the enhanced code and carrier Doppler consistency test. GPS Solut 28, 38 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10291-023-01583-6

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10291-023-01583-6

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