Securing the Map: Emerging Threats and Defenses in Geolocation Infrastructure

As geolocation becomes foundational to everything from autonomous vehicles and emergency response to precision agriculture and 3D mapping, the cybersecurity risks facing these systems are escalating. Nation-states and criminal actors are actively targeting location-based infrastructure, exploiting GPS spoofing, jamming, and data manipulation to cause disruption, economic harm, and even geopolitical confusion.

This talk will explore the evolving threat landscape for geospatial systems and provide concrete lessons for building cyber-resilient location-based services. We’ll examine the operational and technical challenges of defending critical geolocation infrastructure, using real-world case studies from securing NextNav’s high-precision, terrestrial-based 3D location platform. Recent global events—including confirmed GNSS spoofing in the Black Sea and Baltic regions, and interference with commercial aviation and maritime systems—underscore that these threats are no longer theoretical.

Attendees will gain insights into:

• The evolution of geolocation technology, including how 3D positioning is transforming industries like public safety, telecom, transportation, and defense.
• Modern threat models specific to location data, including GPS/GNSS spoofing, RF jamming, replay attacks, and data integrity compromises.
• Real-world adversary tactics and lessons learned from securing production-grade geolocation systems, with emphasis on operational resilience and signal validation.
• Best practices for integrating geolocation services into zero-trust architectures and enhancing situational awareness through telemetry and signal diversity.
• The policy and compliance landscape, including recent developments in FCC, FAA, and NIST guidance relevant to location data protection.

This session is designed for security leaders, threat analysts, architects, and engineers working in or adjacent to critical infrastructure, IoT, telecom, or government sectors. It will also appeal to those exploring the intersection of physical systems and digital risk—where the map itself can now be the target.