North Korea jams GPS signals, affecting planes and ships in South Korea

Photo: Jung Yeon-Je Agence Archives France-Presse Planes from South Korean airline Korean Air and foreign planes park on the tarmac at Incheon International Airport, west of Seoul, on May 2, 2012.

Claire Lee – Agence France-Presse

Published yesterday at 8:21 AM

• Asie

North Korea has been conducting a GPS signal jamming campaign since Friday that has affected several ships and dozens of civilian aircraft in South Korea, the South Korean military said Saturday.

The accusations come at a time of tension surrounding North Korea, which fired a missile presented as the most advanced in its arsenal a little over a week ago and is accused of sending thousands of soldiers to help Russia in its war against Ukraine, all in the context of the American election won by Donald Trump.

The South Korean military has urged caution for South Korean ships and civilian aircraft traveling on and above the Yellow Sea, between China and the Korean peninsula, indicating that ships and dozens of aircraft were experiencing “some operational disruptions.”

“We strongly urge North Korea to immediately cease its GPS provocations and warn that it will be held accountable for any problems that arise,” Seoul's Joint Chiefs of Staff continued in a statement.

GPS jamming involves emitting unknown signals that saturate GPS receivers and render them unusable for navigation. South Korea has repeatedly accused North Korea in recent years of engaging in this type of nuisance from its territory.

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In May, the South Korean military reported a similar attack by Pyongyang, saying it had not interfered with any military operations in the South.

“GPS jamming attacks pose a real risk of serious incidents, including potential plane crashes in the worst case scenario,” Yang Moo-jin, president of the University of North Korean Studies in Seoul, told AFP, noting that the aim of the campaign was “unclear.”

It could be “an intention to divert the world's attention from [North Korean] troop deployments in Russia, to instill psychological anxiety among the people of the South, or to respond to [South Korean military] maneuvers on Friday,” the specialist explained.

For defector Ahn Chan-il, director of the World Institute for North Korean Studies, the jamming could allow the North to “protect its own communications and intelligence exchanges during critical military operations” at home and abroad.

Garbage balloons

The announcements come just over a week after Pyongyang test-fired an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) that the regime touts as the most advanced in its arsenal.

The launch, days before the U.S. presidential election on Tuesday, was North Korea’s first weapons test since it was accused of sending troops to Russia to bolster its war effort in Ukraine.

South Korea responded on Friday by firing one of its own ballistic missiles into the Yellow Sea in a bid to demonstrate its “strong determination to respond firmly” to “any North Korean provocation.”

The Hyunmoo missile, a short-range surface-to-surface projectile, is part of South Korea’s preemptive strike system called the “Kill Chain,” which aims to take the lead in an imminent North Korean offensive.

During his term, Donald Trump met with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un three times, starting with a historic summit in Singapore in June 2018, but the two men failed to make much progress in efforts to denuclearize North Korea.

Since the failure of a second summit in Hanoi in 2019, Pyongyang has abandoned diplomacy, doubling down on its military buildup while rejecting offers of dialogue from Washington.

Since last May, Pyongyang has also sent thousands of balloons carrying garbage toward South Korea. Some of these balloons have disrupted traffic at Incheon International Airport, located northwest of Seoul, about forty kilometers from North Korea.

“Planes take off and land every two to three minutes” in Incheon, “so it is crucial to exercise caution,” notes Yang Moo-jin.