GNSS Jamming and Spoofing Targets Trucking

Cargo theft increased 60% between 2024 and 2025 in North America, and the average loss increased 36% to $273,990, according to Verisk CargoNet. Technology increasingly enables those heists, but it also can thwart them.

“The sharp rise in cargo crime that was observed in 2025 was accompanied by a noticeable increase in the sophistication of coordinated theft operations,” the National Motor Freight Traffic Association says in its 2026 Transportation Industry Cybersecurity Trends Report. “A prevalent technique used was GPS spoofing, where criminals manipulate location data of trucks or trailers to conceal unauthorized route changes or to mislead tracking systems during load thefts.”

GPS spoofing and jamming could become a way to target autonomous trucks because there’s no driver to question whether a route or destination seems suspicious. Here’s what telematics engineers, supply chain managers, trucking company owners, and other members of the transportation ecosystem need to know about how GPS spoofing and jamming works and how to mitigate those attacks.

How Signals are Jammed and Spoofed

Jamming uses strong signals in either the GPS band or adjacent bands to interfere with the GPS signal, to the point that it’s unusable. These attacks are relatively unsophisticated and use low-cost equipment.

Spoofing uses fake signals to fool the receiver aboard the truck into believing it’s in a different location or at a different point in time. Spoofing is more sophisticated and difficult to detect than jamming.

Both types of attacks also can target the telematics receiver aboard the trailer or intermodal shipping container. For example, with the receiver providing erroneous location information, the telematics solution will decide that the cargo is exactly where it’s supposed to be and not send an excursion alert.

Finding Strength in Numbers

Spoofing and jamming are increasingly common in aerospace and defense applications ranging from commercial aircraft to miliary drones. Many of those applications’ mitigation techniques are equally applicable to trucking and logistics. (For a deep dive, see “Countering GNSS Jamming and Spoofing for Aerospace and Defense Applications.”)

One technique is to use signals from multiple constellations, such as augmenting GPS with Galileo, because it’s highly unlikely that both will be subject to simultaneous attacks, each operating at a different frequency. (For a rundown of all the existing and forthcoming options, see “How to Navigate the L1, L2, L5, E5a, E5b, and G2 Alphabet Soup of GNSS Constellations and Signals.”)

This technique can be a particularly good fit for intermodal applications if the telematics device in the cargo container already has receivers and antennas for multiple constellations in order to track its location as it travels the globe. And with thefts averaging $273,990, it’s not hard to make the business case for using this technique for trucks and trailers that never leave North America.

Telematics engineers have more receiver and antenna options than ever for designing multi-constellation solutions that can withstand jamming and spoofing. Today, a single-band receiver typically supports GPS L1, GLONASS L1, and BeiDou B1, which span three different frequencies. Many modern receivers will also support Galileo E1. Meanwhile, multi-band receivers include at least one additional “significantly different” frequency from the L1/B1/E1 band set.

All GNSS signals are already relatively weak by the time they reach the Earth, and they’re frequently attenuated even more by dense foliage and concrete canyons. A multi-constellation telematics solution can minimize the risk that cargo will end up in a black hole.

How to Choose the Right Antenna

The weaker the signal, the more vulnerable it is to jamming. This is something to keep in mind when choosing a GNSS antenna system capable of meeting customer requirements for cybersecurity, availability, reliability, resilience, and performance. The antenna’s design, as well as its integration with the receiver and the rest of the device, directly affect:

• Signal Strength and Sensitivity: High-gain antennas improve reception in challenging environments.
• Time to First Fix (TTFF): The faster the receiver can acquire GNSS signals, the faster it can provide positioning, navigation, and timing (PNT) data to the application, such as for turn-by-turn navigation.
• Multipath Mitigation: Reduces errors caused by signal reflections in urban canyons.
• Interference Rejection: Filters out unwanted signals from adjacent bands like 5G.

For more insights and tips for developing a telematics solution that mitigates jamming and spoofing, see:

• “Get Out of a Jam: How GNSS Antennas Help Thwart Jamming Attacks”
• “Top GNSS Jamming and Spoofing Attacks and How to Mitigate Them”
• “Where the Rubber Meets the Road: Top Tips for Designing a Transportation-Grade GNSS Solution”
• “Multi-Band Antenna Strategies for Fleet Management and Asset Tracking: LTE, GNSS, and LPWAN in One System”
• “Autonomous Truck Specialist Leverages 4G/5G, GNSS, and Wi-Fi to Maximize Productivity and Safety”
• “Active vs. Passive GNSS Antennas: Choosing the Right Solution”
• “GNSS Constellations: Exploring GPS, GLONASS, Galileo, BeiDou, NavIC, and QZSS”

Get in touch for orders or any queries: sales@rfdesign.co.za / +27 21 555 8400

Courtesy of Taoglas