Norway's Defence Research Establishment, FFI, has published a report on the risks of losing satellite-based positioning, navigation and timing signals, known as PNT. It concludes such failures could seriously weaken Norway's total defence. The Ministry of Trade, Industry and Fisheries commissioned the report.
FFI mapped GNSS dependency across nine critical functions, including power supply, telecommunications, transport, payment systems, food distribution and emergency services. Most sectors carry medium vulnerability, FFI found. Emergency services face medium-to-high risk, since they rely on GNSS for localisation, navigation and resource management.
FFI describes GNSS signals as "weak and highly vulnerable to electromagnetic interference," both natural and man-made. It singles out spoofing, feeding false position or timing data into a receiver, as more dangerous than jamming, because it is harder to detect and can disrupt operations immediately.
FFI recommends six measures. These include testing navigation equipment for weaknesses, setting national PNT robustness standards, building ground-based backup timing references, and fitting multi-GNSS receivers and anti-jamming antennas.
Minister of Fisheries and Ocean Policy Marianne Sivertsen Næss said GNSS disruptions have already become "a daily problem" in East Finnmark, "impacting transport, healthcare and police". She stated that the FFI report "gives us a systematic analysis of how vulnerable our society is to the loss of satellite-based PNT," and would feed into work on strengthening preparedness and total defence.