Research Warns of Cyber-Physical Attacks Against Vessel Tracking System

Researchers at Trend Micro demonstrated that the Automated Identification System (AIS) used on hundreds of thousands of vessels contains protocol and implementation weaknesses; using Software Defined Radio they produced spoofed AIS messages (false SOS, collision warnings, fake positions) and showed attacks that could disrupt Vessel Tracking System servers, indicating a realistic cyber-physical risk though the work was demonstrated in a lab environment rather than documenting active exploitation in the wild.