Digital warfare tech at sea helping evade US sanctions

STEALTH MODE Since 2020, 200 vessels in 350 incident electronically manipulated their GPS location

WILLIAM FALLON, a retired four-star admiral and former head of the US Pacific Command, said U.S. authorities have been aware for some time of the threat from electronic manipulation, one of a growing number of socalled gray zone national security challenges that cut across traditional military, commercial and economic lines.

Miami, Feb. 3: Technology to hide a ship’s location previously available only to the world’s militaries is spreading fast through the global maritime industry as governments from Iran to Venezuela and the rogue shipping companies they depend on to move their petroleum products look for stealthier ways to circumvent US sanctions.

Windward, a maritime intelligence company whose data is used by the US government to investigate sanctions violations, said that since January 2020 it has detected more than 200 vessels involved in over 350 incidents in which they appear to have electronically manipulated their GPS location.

This is out of hand right now, Matan Peled, cofounder of Windward and a former Israeli naval officer, said in an interview. It’s not driven by countries or superpowers. It’s ordinary companies using this technique. The scale is astonishing.

Peled said US authorities have been slow to catch on to the spread of technology that has been part of the electronic warfare arsenal for decades but is only now cropping up in commercial shipping, with serious national security, environmental and maritime safety implications.

Windward was able to identify suspect ships using technology that detects digital tracks that don’t correspond to actual movements, such as hairpin turns at breakneck speed or drifting in the form of perfect crop circles.

William Fallon, a retired four-star admiral and former head of the US Pacific Command, said U.S. authorities have been aware for some time of the threat from electronic manipulation, one of a growing number of socalled gray zone national security challenges that cut across traditional military, commercial and economic lines.

Any time you can deceive somebody into believing you’re somewhere where you’re not is concerning,” said Fallon, who is now a board member of the American

Security Project, a Washington think tank. It illustrates the extent to which people who don’t have any scruples are willing to go to achieve their objectives and the ease with which they can do it.

One of the more egregious examples found by Windward involves a 183meter-long oil tanker that could be tracked sailing to Iraq even as it was in reality loading crude in Iran, which is banned from selling its oil by US sanctions.

The tanker, whose name Windward asked to be withheld so as not to disrupt any potential US government investigation, set sail on Feb. 11, 2021, from the United Arab Emirates, reporting its destination as Basra, Iraq. When it was 20 nautical miles away, its global navigation system began exhibiting strange drifting patterns. Twelve days later, its transmission stabilised and it could be tracked heading back through the Hormuz strait at normal sailing speed, this time fully laden with crude.