Iranian Spoofing Lessons for China

The Iranians (and the Russians) are teaching the PLA and the Maritime Militia how to spoof.

International maritime law requires large commercial vessels to travel with a transponder that transmits automatically their ship name, location, and other identifying information. Iranian ships over the last several years have learned Russians to falsify that information, or “spoofing” in industry parlance.

Iranian ships are operating in the dark or with falsified information, in some case appearing to sail on land. This is an increasing trend amongst the “shadow fleet” that transport Iranian and Russian oil to China. These aging vessels are an environmental risk waiting to happen. Interestingly, the vessels pass through Taiwan EEZ despite heading to China’s teapot refineries who operate on razor thin margins. They happily buy the crude and other oil products at heavily discounted prices. But I digress. By spoofing their IDs and locations, it makes it harder for the US Navy to interdict these vessels.

We see China’s maritime militia vessels doing the same. Even using ID’s from vessels that were scrapped decades ago. Fortunately, ingeniSPACE is an all-source GEOINT house combining a wide range of sensors and data to identify, finger print and track such vessels.

Should you have questions on how to protect your critical underwater infrastructure or secure your EEZ, please contact your ingeniSPACE Customer Success Manager or email us at insights@ingenispace.com.