At the ION GNSS+, Microsemi recently unveiled its latest offering to secure infrastructure from GPS jamming and spoofing threats: the BlueSky^TM GPS Firewall. Microsemi’s BlueSky GPS Firewall filters the GPS signal in real time, removing anomalies from the GPS signal before it is consumed by the downstream GPS receiver. This creates an intelligent and secure barrier against jamming and spoofing, and prevents the GPS receiver from being impacted by such incidents.

Deployment of the BlueSky GPS Firewall does not require any new cabling or alteration of the pre-existing antenna installation, and it is interoperable with standard GPS receivers. Additionally, the BlueSky GPS Firewall incorporates an Ethernet interface for remote management and monitoring, and includes a secure web interface that any browser can use for configuration and setup of the device.

The dependency on Position Navigation and Timing (PNT) is increasingly important to critical infrastructure sectors such as telecommunications, energy, transportation, emergency services, financial services, and enterprise infrastructure, and is mainly provided through GPS. Best practice documents published by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Science and Technology Directorate (S&T) describe steps that can be taken to mitigate outages and disruptions with GPS reception.

Secure PNT Requires Detection, Resiliency, and Visibility

The BlueSky GPS Firewall includes a broad range of data validation rules based on real, live sky GPS threats, both intentional and unintentional. Similar to network security threats, new GPS vulnerabilities are on the rise and Microsemi is continuously tracking GPS signal manipulation including spoofing threats, jamming attacks, multipath signal interference, atmospheric activity, and many other issues that can create GPS signal anomalies, disruptions, and outages. These advancements are incorporated into the software platform of the BlueSkyTM GPS Firewall, which can be updated remotely using Microsemi’s TimePictra™ management system.

Visit the GPS Instruments home page or download the complete white paper on GNSS Security for PNT Applications.

Tags: BlueSky, Firewall, GPS, ION GNSS+, Network Security, PNT