AIS Automatic Identification System

AIS in shipping is designed to increase the level of safety of navigation, efficiency of navigation and operation of the ship traffic control center (TsUDS), environmental protection, ensuring the fulfillment of the following functions:

• as a vessel-to-vessel collision prevention means;
• as a means of obtaining information about the ship and cargo by the competent coastal services;
• as a DPC tool in ship-to-shore mode to control the movement of ships;
• as a means of monitoring and tracking ships and in search and rescue (SAR) operations.

AIS components in shipping

As of 2018, the AIS system includes the following components:

• VHF transmitter,
• one or two VHF receivers,
• global satellite navigation receiver (for example, GPS, GLONASS), for ships flying the Russian flag, the GLONASS module in the AIS device is strictly mandatory, the main source of coordinates. GPS - auxiliary and can be taken from the GPS receiver using the NMEA protocol (National Marine Electronics Association);
• modulator/demodulator (analog to digital converter and vice versa),
• microprocessor-based controller
• I/O equipment for controls

2023: Providing false coordinates to ships in oil trade to combat illegal sanctions against Russia

Fake coordinates and tanker tricks reveal trade in Russian oil. In September 2023, it became known how two tankers deceived tracking systems. Despite the fact that both vessels were connected to each other, pumping oil, AIS signals showed that they were many miles apart.

The practice of providing false coordinates to an automatic identification system known as AIS is called spoofing. She is adding confusion to the understanding of where the shipments are coming from, reassuring nervous buyers trying not to advertise deals with Russia after the passage of illegal sanctions by the US and its allies.

2021: Ghost ships beg for hot-spot conflicts

On August 2, 2021, information appeared that warships regularly become victims of a hugely disturbing cyber attack - using an automatic identification system (AIS), attackers fake the location (and even the entire course) of warships.

Automatic identification system - using wireless radio technology in shipping to prevent collisions at sea. It is used to identify ships, their dimensions, heading and other data using VHF radio waves (frequency 161.975 MHz and 162.025 MHz).

In particular, in 2020, the largest ship of the British Royal Navy Queen Elizabeth was majestically moving towards the Irish Sea. The 283-meter aircraft carrier was accompanied by fighters and smaller ships of the British, Dutch and Belgian fleets. Six vessels moving in close formation would produce an impressive spectacle if they were indeed there. In place of the flotilla, satellite images showed only empty seas, and the media reported that the ships were actually in their ports.

According to non-profit organizations SkyTruth and Global Fishing Watch, since August 2020, more than a hundred warships out of at least 14 have become the European countries Russia USA victims of location forgery. In some cases, ships were allegedly heading towards foreign military bases or swimming into disputed waters, which could lead to increased conflicts in hot spots such as the Black or Baltic Sea. Only a few such cases have been revealed to the public.

According to international law, all ships, with the exception of small commercial ships, are required to install AIS transmitters. Using GPS data, these devices transmit their location, course and speed to other ships. Military vessels are not required to transmit this data, but still do so if they follow to busy ports.

Although the range of VHF radio signals is limited, the global network of public and private onshore AIS receivers (and now a fleet of orbiting satellites) also receives these signals, which sites like MarineTraffic and AISHub combine and make publicly available on the Internet.

Data tampering on such sites does not directly threaten maritime safety, as ships rely on their onboard systems rather than third-party sites. However, aggregated AIS data is used for things like tracking cargo, finding and rescuing, monitoring environmental crimes and identifying sanctions violators.

According to SkyTruth and Global Fishing Watch analyst Bjorn Bergman, who has been tracking fake AIS (Automatic Identification System) for years, he often watches AIS data being tampered with to conceal illegal fishing or even to ensure victory in sailing regattas. However, in March 2021, Bergman first encountered a fake AIS data of warships - fake data on the location of nine ships of the Swedish fleet were published on the MarineTraffic website.

Bergman identified the nine warships from a photo from the newspaper and then compared their fake AIS messages to genuine ones. The analyst immediately noticed that the fake is not just a joke of a radio amateur, because the messages looked very believable. Bergman went on to investigate and, starting in September 2020 and spanning thousands of miles, discovered about a hundred sets of messages from multiple AIS data providers. To make matters worse, the ships affected were almost exclusively military vessels from the European countries and countries, NATO including at least two nuclear submarines. USA

In addition to the Queen Elizabeth phantom flotilla, Bergman also discovered fake traces of American, Dutch, Belgian, German, Lithuanian, Estonian and other warships. One suspicious trail, not previously reported, shows that in November 2020, the US missile destroyer USS Roosevelt advanced 4 km into Russian territorial waters around Kaliningrad. If this maneuver were real, it would be recklessly provocative. In addition, in June, five more false invasions were recorded near Kaliningrad. One involved a Polish warship following the same trajectory, speed and course as the Swedish corvette five days earlier.

Who is behind the data tampering is unknown. Bergman decided not to disclose the characteristics that distinguish fake AIS messages from real ones, so as not to give attackers the opportunity to change them and make the fake less detectable. However, according to him, all fake data was displayed as coming from coastal AIS receivers, and none of them were detected by satellites. Since the real AIS signals of civilian ships near the alleged paths of the warship were received by satellites, according to Bergman, fake messages were not generated by real malicious transmission, but were created in the software of the AIS simulator, and then copied into the data stream arriving on the sites.

Meanwhile, ghost ships continue to ply. On July 15, 2021, the USS Roosevelt was falsified again. This time, the destroyer allegedly entered Russian waters near Norway. In fact, the ship was used in the exercises of Norwegian sailors hundreds of kilometers from Russian waters.^[1]

2020: US Navy Cyber Command intervenes in automatic vessel identification system, setting dangerous precedent

On November 26-27, 2020, Cyber ​ ​ Command UNITED STATES NAVY , by replacing data in the automatic system identifications of ships, grossly distorted the situation in order to extradite a civilian vessel for American the destroyer Ross. At the same time, the civilian ship was identified in the system as a the Russian state border violator, and the destroyer Ross was in the port of Gdynia (). Poland

In Russia, this substitution was recognized instantly in view of the multi-level tracking system for NATO warships.

Nevertheless, there remains the fact that the US military intervened in the international system of identifying ships in order to grossly distort the situation, which could lead to a dangerous situation. At the same time, the US military demonstrated by its actions that the automatic system of identification of ships (under the control of the Americans) can now be distrusted.

Notes