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Secure and resilient localisation in cyber-physical systems
KTH, School of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science (EECS), Computer Science, Software and Computer systems, SCS.ORCID iD: 0000-0002-9064-0604
2025 (English)Doctoral thesis, comprehensive summary (Other academic)
Abstract [en]

Global navigation satellite system (GNSS) and other assisted positioning infrastructures provide ubiquitous, precise locations for cyber-physical system (CPS), from autonomous vehicles to location-based service (LBS) applications on mobile phones in daily lives. Combining multiple satellite constellations, network infrastructures, and onboard sensors typically makes the position solutions more accurate and robust than any single source alone. 

However, civilian GNSS signals, Wi-Fi beacons, and cellular pilot signals lack cryptographic protection and are therefore vulnerable to signal spoofing attacks. Even if they can be upgraded to support authentication, meaconing or wormhole attacks can relay and falsify the wireless signals and then manipulate the localisation. More seriously, an attacker can selectively jam the wireless signals from specific infrastructures to force CPS to downgrade to less secure signals, which are later spoofed; coordinated adversaries can also target multiple infrastructures simultaneously to manipulate the positioning result. 

This thesis is in the broad area of data trustworthiness for CPS, focusing on the security and resilience of localisation. Emphasis is given on securing the localisation based on GNSS, as they are relevant to a multiplicity of modern systems (e.g., connected vehicles, smartphones, and other Internet-of-Things (IoT) platforms). Significant efforts are dedicated to detecting attacks on position and providing secure and reliable location information, even in the presence of adversaries and benign faults (e.g., challenging propagation environments). Where perfect recovery is unlikely, the proposed methods aim for a best-effort position estimation by opportunistically fusing the remaining available benign signals. 

These efforts are concerned with designing, analysing, implementing, and evaluating diverse protocols that address GNSS-specific attacks, other positioning signal attacks, and simultaneous GNSS with other signal attacks. The approaches are theoretically rigorous, are evaluated through detailed simulations, real-world experiments, and system implementation, proposing concrete defense mechanisms.

Abstract [sv]

Global navigation satellite system (GNSS) och andra infrastrukturer för assisterad positionering tillhandahåller överallt närvarande, precisa positioner för cyber-physical system (CPS) — från autonoma fordon till location-based service (LBS)-applikationer i mobiltelefoner i vardagen. Fusionen av flera satellitkonstellationer, nätverksinfrastrukturer och ombordliggande sensorer gör positionslösningarna mer precisa och robusta än vad varje enskild lokaliseringsmetod kan erbjuda.

Avsaknaden av kryptografiskt skydd för GNSS-signaler, Wi-Fi-beacons och cellulära pilotsignaler gör dem dock sårbara för signalförfalskningsattacker. Även om systemen kan uppgraderas för att stödja autentisering, kan meaconing- och maskhålsattacker vidarebefordra och förfalska trådlösa signaler och därigenom manipulera positionsbestämningen. Ännu värre är att en angripare kan selektivt störa trådlösa signaler från specifika infrastrukturer för att tvinga CPS att falla tillbaka på mindre säkra signaler, vilka därefter kan förfalskas. På liknande sätt kan angriparen samordna attacker för att förfalska samtliga infrastrukturer.

Denna avhandling rör det breda området datatillförlitlighet för CPS, med fokus på säkerhet och motståndskraft vid lokalisering (positionering). Särskild tonvikt läggs på att säkra lokalisering baserad på GNSS, eftersom dessa är relevanta för en mängd moderna system — från smarta/uppkopplade fordon till smartphones och Internet-of-Things (IoT)-plattformar. Betydande insatser ägnas åt att upptäcka attacker mot positionsinformation och att tillhandahålla säker och tillförlitlig platsinformation även i närvaro av angripare och godartade fel (t.ex. i svåra utbredningsmiljöer). I vissa fall sker detta som en best-effort-lösning genom att utnyttja alternativa lokaliseringstekniker.

Dessa insatser omfattar design, analys, implementering och utvärdering av olika protokoll som hanterar GNSS-specifika attacker, andra attacker mot positioneringssignaler samt samtidiga attacker riktade mot GNSS och andra signaler. Metoderna är teoretiskt rigorösa och utvärderas genom detaljerade simuleringar, verkliga experiment och systemimplementation, och föreslår konkreta försvarsmekanismer.

Place, publisher, year, edition, pages
Stockholm: KTH Royal Institute of Technology, 2025. , p. xxi, 39
Series
TRITA-EECS-AVL ; 2026:5
Keywords [en]
Secure localisation, global navigation satellite system, spoofing detection, cyber physical system, location-based services, opportunistic position information, federated learning, self-supervised learning, multimodal sensing
Keywords [sv]
Säker lokalisering, globalt satellitnavigationssystem, förfalskningsdetektering, cyberfysiska system, platsbaserade tjänster, opportunistisk positionsinformation, federerat lärande, självövervakat lärande, multimodal avkänning
National Category
Electrical Engineering, Electronic Engineering, Information Engineering
Research subject
Electrical Engineering
Identifiers
URN: urn:nbn:se:kth:diva-374003ISBN: 978-91-8106-496-4 (print)OAI: oai:DiVA.org:kth-374003DiVA, id: diva2:2020907
Public defence
2026-01-13, https://kth-se.zoom.us/j/62340383473, F3, Lindstedtsvägen 26, Stockholm, 09:00 (English)
Opponent
Supervisors
Note

QC 20251212

Available from: 2025-12-12 Created: 2025-12-11 Last updated: 2025-12-18Bibliographically approved
List of papers
1. Probabilistic Detection of GNSS Spoofing using Opportunistic Information
Open this publication in new window or tab >>Probabilistic Detection of GNSS Spoofing using Opportunistic Information
2023 (English)In: Proceedings IEEE/ION Position, Location and Navigation Symposium, PLANS 2023, Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE), 2023Conference paper, Oral presentation with published abstract (Refereed)
Abstract [en]

Global Navigation Satellite Systems (GNSS) are integrated into many devices. However, civilian GNSS signals are usually not cryptographically protected. This makes attacks that forge signals relatively easy. Considering modern devices often have network connections and on-board sensors, the proposed here Probabilistic Detection of GNSS Spoofing (PDS) scheme is based on such opportunistic information. PDS has at its core two parts. First, a regression problem with motion model constraints, which equalizes the noise of all locations considering the motion model of the device. Second, a Gaussian process, that analyzes statistical properties of location data to construct uncertainty. Then, a likelihood function, that fuses the two parts, as a basis for a Neyman-Pearson lemma (NPL)-based detection strategy. Our experimental evaluation shows a performance gain over the state-of-the-art, in terms of attack detection effectiveness.

Place, publisher, year, edition, pages
Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE), 2023
National Category
Other Electrical Engineering, Electronic Engineering, Information Engineering Geotechnical Engineering and Engineering Geology
Identifiers
urn:nbn:se:kth:diva-326730 (URN)10.1109/PLANS53410.2023.10139976 (DOI)001022344800067 ()2-s2.0-85162891884 (Scopus ID)
Conference
2023 IEEE/ION Position, Location and Navigation Symposium, PLANS 2023, Monterey, USA, 24-27 April 2023
Note

Part of proceedings ISBN 978-1-6654-1772-3

QC 20230511

Available from: 2023-05-09 Created: 2023-05-09 Last updated: 2025-12-11Bibliographically approved
2. Extending RAIM with a Gaussian Mixture of Opportunistic Information
Open this publication in new window or tab >>Extending RAIM with a Gaussian Mixture of Opportunistic Information
2024 (English)In: Proceedings of the 2024 International Technical Meeting of The Institute of Navigation, 2024, p. 454-466Conference paper, Published paper (Refereed)
Abstract [en]

Global navigation satellite systems (GNSS) are indispensable for various applications, but they are vulnerable to spoofing attacks. The original receiver autonomous integrity monitoring (RAIM) was not designed for securing GNSS. In this context, RAIM was extended with wireless signals, termed signals of opportunity (SOPs), or onboard sensors, typically assumed benign. However, attackers might also manipulate wireless networks, raising the need for a solution that considers untrustworthy SOPs. To address this, we extend RAIM by incorporating all opportunistic information, i.e., measurements from terrestrial infrastructures and onboard sensors, culminating in one function for robust GNSS spoofing detection. The objective is to assess the likelihood of GNSS spoofing by analyzing locations derived from extended RAIM solutions, which include location solutions from GNSS pseudorange subsets and wireless signal subsets of untrusted networks. Our method comprises two pivotal components: subset generation and location fusion. Subsets of ranging information are created and processed through positioning algorithms, producing temporary locations. Onboard sensors provide speed, acceleration, and attitude data, aiding in location filtering based on motion constraints. The filtered locations, modeled with uncertainty, are fused into a composite likelihood function normalized for GNSS spoofing detection. Theoretical assessments of GNSS-only and multi-infrastructure scenarios under uncoordinated and coordinated attacks are conducted. The detection of these attacks is feasible when the number of benign subsets exceeds a specific threshold. A real-world dataset from the Kista Science City area is used for experimental validation. Comparative analysis against baseline methods shows a significant improvement in detection accuracy achieved by our Gaussian Mixture RAIM approach. Moreover, we discuss leveraging RAIM results for plausible location recovery. The theoretical analysis and experimental validation underscore the efficacy of our spoofing detection approach. 

National Category
Engineering and Technology
Identifiers
urn:nbn:se:kth:diva-350552 (URN)10.33012/2024.19544 (DOI)2-s2.0-85191243122 (Scopus ID)
Conference
2024 International Technical Meeting of The Institute of Navigation, January 23 - 25, 2024, Long Beach, California 
Note

QC 20240717

Available from: 2024-07-16 Created: 2024-07-16 Last updated: 2025-12-11Bibliographically approved
3. Position-based Rogue Access Point Detection
Open this publication in new window or tab >>Position-based Rogue Access Point Detection
2024 (English)In: Proceedings - 9th IEEE European Symposium on Security and Privacy Workshops, Euro S and PW 2024, Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) , 2024, p. 436-442Conference paper, Published paper (Refereed)
Abstract [en]

Rogue Wi-Fi access point (AP) attacks can leadto data breaches and unauthorized access. Existing rogue AP detection methods and tools often rely on channel state information (CSI) or received signal strength indicator (RSSI), but they require specific hardware or achieve low detection accuracy. On the other hand, AP positions are typically fixed, and Wi-Fi can support indoor positioning of user devices. Based on this position information, the mobile platform can check if one (or more) AP in range is rogue. The inclusion of a rogue AP would in principle result in a wrong estimated position. Thus, the idea to use different subsets of APs: the positions computed based on subsets that include a rogue AP will be significantly different from those that do not. Our scheme contains two components: subset generation and position validation. First, we generate subsets of RSSIs from APs, which are then utilized for positioning, similar to receiver autonomous integrity monitoring (RAIM). Second, the position estimates, along with uncertainties, are combined into a Gaussian mixture, to check for inconsistencies by evaluating the overlap of the Gaussian components. Our comparative analysis, conducted on a real-world dataset with three types of attacks and synthetic RSSIs integrated, demonstrates a substantial improvement in rogue AP detection accuracy.

Place, publisher, year, edition, pages
Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE), 2024
National Category
Other Electrical Engineering, Electronic Engineering, Information Engineering
Identifiers
urn:nbn:se:kth:diva-350542 (URN)10.1109/EuroSPW61312.2024.00055 (DOI)001302657400049 ()2-s2.0-85203011121 (Scopus ID)
Conference
IEEE European Symposium on Security and Privacy Workshops (EuroS&PW), Vienna, Austria, July 8-12, 2024
Note

Part of ISBN: 9798350367294

QC 20240927

Available from: 2024-07-16 Created: 2024-07-16 Last updated: 2025-12-11Bibliographically approved
4. Self-supervised federated GNSS spoofing detection with opportunistic data
Open this publication in new window or tab >>Self-supervised federated GNSS spoofing detection with opportunistic data
2025 (English)In: 2025 IEEE/ION Position, Location and Navigation Symposium, PLANS 2025, Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) , 2025, p. 381-390Conference paper, Published paper (Refereed)
Abstract [en]

Global navigation satellite systems (GNSS) are vulnerable to spoofing attacks, with adversarial signals manipulating the location or time information of receivers, potentially causing severe disruptions. The task of discerning the spoofing signals from benign ones is naturally relevant for machine learning, thus recent interest in applying it for detection. While deep learning-based methods are promising, they require extensive labeled datasets, consume significant computational resources, and raise privacy concerns due to the sensitive nature of position data. This is why this paper proposes a self-supervised federated learning framework for GNSS spoofing detection. It consists of a cloud server and local mobile platforms. Each mobile platform employs a self-supervised anomaly detector using long short-term memory (LSTM) networks. Labels for training are generated locally through a spoofing-deviation prediction algorithm, ensuring privacy. Local models are trained independently, and only their parameters are uploaded to the cloud server, which aggregates them into a global model using FedAvg. The updated global model is then distributed back to the mobile platforms and trained iteratively. The evaluation shows that our self-supervised federated learning framework outperforms position-based and deep learning-based methods in detecting spoofing attacks while preserving data privacy.

Place, publisher, year, edition, pages
Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE), 2025
Keywords
federated learning, GNSS spoofing detection, Secure localization
National Category
Computer Sciences Computer Systems
Identifiers
urn:nbn:se:kth:diva-368823 (URN)10.1109/PLANS61210.2025.11028268 (DOI)2-s2.0-105009241599 (Scopus ID)
Conference
2025 IEEE/ION Position, Location and Navigation Symposium, PLANS 2025, Salt Lake City, United States of America, Apr 28 2025 - May 1 2025
Note

Part of ISBN 9798331523176

QC 20250902

Available from: 2025-09-02 Created: 2025-09-02 Last updated: 2025-12-11Bibliographically approved
5. Guardian Positioning System (GPS) for Location Based Services
Open this publication in new window or tab >>Guardian Positioning System (GPS) for Location Based Services
2025 (English)In: WiSec 2025 - Proceedings of the 18th ACM Conference on Security and Privacy in Wireless and Mobile Networks, Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) , 2025, p. 88-99Conference paper, Published paper (Refereed)
Abstract [en]

Location-based service (LBS) applications proliferate and support transportation, entertainment, and more. Modern mobile platforms, with smartphones being a prominent example, rely on terrestrial and satellite infrastructures (e.g., global navigation satellite system (GNSS) and crowdsourced Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, cellular, and IP databases) for correct positioning. However, they are vulnerable to attacks that manipulate positions to control and undermine LBS functionality-Thus enabling the scamming of users or services. Our work reveals that GNSS spoofing attacks succeed even though smartphones have multiple sources of positioning information. Moreover, that Wi-Fi spoofing attacks with GNSS jamming are surprisingly effective. More concerning is the evidence that sophisticated, coordinated spoofing attacks are highly effective. Attacks can target GNSS in combination with other positioning methods, thus defenses that assume that only GNSS is under attack cannot be effective. More so, resilient GNSS receivers and special-purpose antennas are not feasible on smartphones. To address this gap, we propose an extended receiver autonomous integrity monitoring (RAIM) framework that leverages the readily available, redundant, often so-called opportunistic positioning information on off-The-shelf platforms. We jointly use onboard sensors, terrestrial infrastructures, and GNSS. We show that our extended RAIM framework improves resilience against location spoofing, e.g., achieving a detection accuracy improvement of up to 24-58% compared to the state-of-The-Art algorithms and location providers; detecting attacks within 5 seconds, with a low false positive rate.

Place, publisher, year, edition, pages
Association for Computing Machinery (ACM), 2025
Keywords
geolocation apis, localization attacks, secure localization
National Category
Communication Systems Signal Processing Other Electrical Engineering, Electronic Engineering, Information Engineering
Identifiers
urn:nbn:se:kth:diva-369405 (URN)10.1145/3734477.3734707 (DOI)001539176100010 ()2-s2.0-105012088988 (Scopus ID)
Conference
18th ACM Conference on Security and Privacy in Wireless and Mobile Networks, WiSec 2025, Arlington, United States of America, Jun 30 2025 - Jul 3 2025
Note

Part of ISBN 9798400715303

QC 20250904

Available from: 2025-09-04 Created: 2025-09-04 Last updated: 2025-12-11Bibliographically approved
6. GNSS Spoofing Detection Based on Opportunistic Position Information
Open this publication in new window or tab >>GNSS Spoofing Detection Based on Opportunistic Position Information
2025 (English)In: IEEE Internet of Things Journal, ISSN 2327-4662, Vol. 12, no 17, p. 36168-36182Article in journal (Refereed) Published
Abstract [en]

The limited or no protection for civilian Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) signals makes spoofing attacks relatively easy. With modern mobile devices often featuring network interfaces, state-of-the-art signals of opportunity (SOP) schemes can provide accurate network positions in replacement of GNSS. The use of onboard inertial sensors can also assist in the absence of GNSS, possibly in the presence of jammers. The combination of SOP and inertial sensors has received limited attention, yet it shows strong results on fully custom-built platforms. We do not seek to improve such special-purpose schemes. Rather, we focus on countering GNSS attacks, notably detecting them, with emphasis on deployment with consumer-grade platforms, notably smartphones, that provide off-the-shelf opportunistic information (i.e., network position and inertial sensor data). Our Position-based Attack Detection Scheme (PADS) is a probabilistic framework that uses regression and uncertainty analysis for positions. The regression optimization problem is a weighted mean square error of polynomial fitting, with constraints that the fitted positions satisfy the device velocity and acceleration. Then, uncertainty is modeled by a Gaussian process, which provides more flexibility to analyze how sure or unsure we are about position estimations. In the detection process, we combine all uncertainty information with the position estimations into a fused test statistic, which is the input utilized by an anomaly detector based on outlier ensembles. The evaluation shows that the PADS outperforms a set of baseline methods that rely on SOP or inertial sensor-based or statistical tests, achieving up to 3 times the true positive rate at a low false positive rate.

Place, publisher, year, edition, pages
Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE), 2025
Keywords
GNSS attack detection, opportunistic information, secure localization
National Category
Communication Systems Signal Processing Control Engineering
Identifiers
urn:nbn:se:kth:diva-368747 (URN)10.1109/JIOT.2025.3581443 (DOI)001556065500032 ()2-s2.0-105008826704 (Scopus ID)
Note

QC 20260126

Available from: 2025-08-21 Created: 2025-08-21 Last updated: 2026-01-26Bibliographically approved
7. Interference-Resilient Optical Wireless Positioning via Machine Learning-Enhanced Subset Filtering
Open this publication in new window or tab >>Interference-Resilient Optical Wireless Positioning via Machine Learning-Enhanced Subset Filtering
Show others...
2025 (English)In: Proceedings of the 51st European Conference on Optical Communication, 2025Conference paper, Published paper (Refereed)
National Category
Communication Systems
Identifiers
urn:nbn:se:kth:diva-373703 (URN)
Conference
The 51st European Conference on Optical Communication, 28 September - 2 October 2025, Copenhagen, Denmark
Note

QC 20251208

Available from: 2025-12-05 Created: 2025-12-05 Last updated: 2025-12-11Bibliographically approved
8. Coordinated Position Falsification Attacks and Countermeasures for Location-Based Services
Open this publication in new window or tab >>Coordinated Position Falsification Attacks and Countermeasures for Location-Based Services
2025 (English)In: IEEE Open Journal of the Communications Society, E-ISSN 2644-125X, Vol. 6, p. 9229-9246Article in journal (Refereed) Published
Abstract [en]

With the rise of applications that rely on terrestrial and satellite infrastructures (e.g., and crowd-sourced Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, cellular, and IP databases) for positioning, ensuring their integrity and security is paramount. However, we demonstrate that these applications are susceptible to low-cost attacks (less than 50), including Wi-Fi spoofing combined with jamming, as well as more sophisticated coordinated location spoofing. These attacks manipulate position data to control or undermine functionality, leading to user scams or service manipulation. Therefore, we propose a countermeasure to detect and thwart such attacks by utilizing readily available, redundant positioning information from off-the-shelf platforms. Our method extends the receiver autonomous integrity monitoring (RAIM) framework by incorporating opportunistic information, including data from onboard sensors and terrestrial infrastructure signals, and, naturally,. We theoretically show that the fusion of heterogeneous signals improves resilience against sophisticated adversaries on multiple fronts. Experimental evaluations show the effectiveness of the proposed scheme in improving detection accuracy by 62% at most compared to baseline schemes and restoring accurate positioning.

Place, publisher, year, edition, pages
Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE), 2025
National Category
Computer Sciences
Identifiers
urn:nbn:se:kth:diva-373699 (URN)10.1109/ojcoms.2025.3626212 (DOI)001608957200008 ()2-s2.0-105020715303 (Scopus ID)
Note

QC 20251209

Available from: 2025-12-05 Created: 2025-12-05 Last updated: 2025-12-11Bibliographically approved
9. Multimodal Location Spoofing: Federated Detection with RAIM-Based Self-Labeling
Open this publication in new window or tab >>Multimodal Location Spoofing: Federated Detection with RAIM-Based Self-Labeling
(English)Manuscript (preprint) (Other academic)
National Category
Computer and Information Sciences
Identifiers
urn:nbn:se:kth:diva-373709 (URN)
Note

QC 20251208

Available from: 2025-12-06 Created: 2025-12-06 Last updated: 2025-12-11Bibliographically approved

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