GETTY Russia may be using electronic warfare to prevent RAF bombers from completing their missions

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It is thought the attacks may be aimed at causing aircrews to hit wrong targets, leading to collateral damage in a bid to undermine Britain’s mission. The news emerges as Russian premier Vladimir Putin stands accused of using increasingly sophisticated technology to launch cyber attacks in the US. At least three sorties, two involving RAF Tornadoes, the other a Typhoon, were hacked over the last few weeks.

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In two cases, the attacks were successfully intercepted by RAF weapons aircrew. However, both missions had to be aborted to void the possibility of bombs landing on incorrect targets. In another case, a bomber was hit 30 seconds after it had already accurately dropped its payload, rendering the attack useless. The incidents were witnessed by the crews of nearby Awacs surveillance aircraft.

GETTY Russia cannot compete with Western military forces so have turned to hacking to disrupt them

Last night experts suggested that the attacks were disrupting the way RAF bombers were receiving GPS coordinates for targets on the ground, a “known vulnerability” which Russia is capitalizing on with what US Gen Ben Hodges recently described as an “eye watering” array of electronic jamming and disruption equipment. These include the 1RL257 Krasukha-4 ground-based electronic warfare system,, photographed at Syria’s Hmeymim airbase last year. Though ostensibly designed to provide Russian troops and bases with a shield against electronic warfare attacks, the mobile unit has the ability to launch long-range attacks of its own. Russia is using Syria as a real-time testbed to trial sophisticated electronic warfare equipment capable of hacking into Nato systems.

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“It is entirely feasible that Russia has targeted Tornadoes and Typhoons in this way,” said air defence expert Justin Bronk, of the Royal United Services Institute think-tank. “The Russians are well aware that they simply cannot match Western precision-guided munition technology, and they cannot match us one-to-one. “But Russia also knows that Britain’s ability to deliver guided munitions depends on access to GPS in the target area and good communications, so they have developed equipment to jam and interrupt both. They are very, very good at this.” The RAF uses two type of targeting system, laser and GPS. While Laser is more difficult to jam, GPS is often preferred.

GETTY British planes are vulnerable to cyber attacks due to the weakness of GPS signals

“GPS coordinates come from Combined Air and Space Operation Centre in Al Udeid Air Base, Qatar, where they are checked off against a list of known red flag targets such as schools, and hospitals. It’s much easier to do this if GPS is being used to guide munitions, rather than laser,” he added. When pilots are given new targets mid-flight, the GPS coordinates are transmitted by Awacs or River Joint reconnaissance aircraft. It is these signals that are being disrupted. Moscow has already shown it is willing to use this technology in the Ukraine, where troops found phones and radios jammed for hours at a time. It has also targetted at least three UAV surveillance drones belonging to the Organization for Security and Cooperation, which were rendered blind and forced to return to base, as well as US drones. “It entirely plausible that RAF aircraft have been targeted in this way, possibly because they wanted to see what they could do, or possibly to cause collateral damage,” said Air Commodore Dai Whittigham, who formerly commanded E-3D AWACS squadron.

GETTY Russia is clearly unconcerned about causing collateral damage by using this jamming tactic