Satnavs, Power Grids Could Go Haywire Due To Y2k-Style Gps Virus

Satnavs, Power Grids Could Go Haywire Due To Y2k-Style Gps Virus

The glitch could send financial markets and industrial control systems into meltdown, and cause travel chaos

Millions of satnavs and other devices that rely on Global Positioning System (GPS) technology could go haywire tonight, due to a Millennium Bug-style computer error.

Those affected could include financial traders who use GPS to record trades, ports combining GPS location and timing information to load ships, and even the power grid, as GPS is used to synchronise energy networks.

The problem is down to the fact that the computer systems on GPS satellites have a maximum value of 1024 to represent weeks.

After 1024 weeks have passed (or 19 years, 7 months and 2 weeks), the number rolls back to zero, potentially causing older devices that use satellite mapping technology to suffer a meltdown.

This is next due to happen at 1am BST on 7 April 2019, (midnight on 6 April UTC).

The first rollover occurred on 21 August 1999. On that occasion, none of the doomsday predictions about what would happen materialised.

But Bill Malik, vice president of cyber security firm Trend Micro, has warned that the effects are likely to be more widespread today, because so many more systems have integrated GPS into their operations.

“Ports load and unload containers automatically, using GPS to guide the cranes. Public-safety systems incorporate GPS systems, as do traffic-monitoring systems for bridges,” he told Tom’s Guide .

“Twenty years ago these links were primitive. Now they are embedded. So any impact now will be substantially greater.”

The US government posted a memo last April, warning businesses about the risks of using primitive systems and urging them to update their technology, but only a fraction are thought to have complied.

According to scientists at the National Physical Laboratory, which describes itself as “the home of UK time”, the true number of devices to be affected is unknown, making it hard to predict the impact.

But if GPS devices have not been programmed to deal with the rollover correctly, they may jump to an incorrect date and time, potentially affecting service and even causing the shutdown of key equipment.

“The effect of the rollover is truly unpredictable,” said Peter Whibberley, senior research scientist, National Physical Laboratory.

“When GPS was first created, the processing power of computers was not what it is today, and limiting the week number to just 10 bits helped to keep down the amount of data that had to be transmitted.

“Now we rely on precise timing in more and more applications, and naturally, we need reliability to match.”

TomTom warned that, even if companies don’t experience system errors or confusion straight away, it is possible that their GPS receivers will malfunction later on down the line.

“This is because some receivers use firmware that ensures the reset comes 19 and a half years after the time of the device’s manufacture rather than after the last reset,”

The problem is reminiscent of the “Millennium Bug”, which was predicted to cause chaos when the date on comuputers flicked over to 01/01/2000.

Problems were anticipated because many programs represented four-digit years with only the final two digits – making the year 2000 indistinguishable from 1900.

However, businesses worldwide upgraded their computer systems and in the end midnight passed on the 1 January with very few problems recorded.

Source: UK Mirror