VDES R‐Mode: Vulnerability analysis and mitigation concepts

• DOI: 10.1002/sat.1427
• Publication Date: 2021-09-12T23:04:20Z
• Authors: Francisco Lázaro; Ronald Raulefs; Hannes Bartz; Thomas Jerkovits
• Keywords: Authentication; Tesla; R-Mode; AIS; 0202 electrical engineering, electronic engineering, information engineering; VDE; 02 engineering and technology; VDES

SummaryVDES R‐Mode aims at providing a contingency maritime positioning and navigation system when the operation of Global Navigation Satellite Systems (GNSS) is disrupted. However, VDES R‐Mode, similarly to GNSS, can itself also be subject to different types of attacks, such as jamming or spoofing. In this paper, we evaluate the vulnerabilities of VDES R‐Mode and discuss the effectiveness and cost of different types of countermeasures. The outcome of this cost‐benefit analysis is a recommendation to introduce authentication for the navigation messages of R‐Mode using the Timed Efficient Stream Loss‐Tolerant Authentication (TESLA) protocol.