Tehran uses electronic warfare to target Starlink, as Iranians try to skirt internet blackout

The Iranian government has begun a campaign of GPS spoofing attacks on SpaceX’s Starlink internet terminals in an unprecedented effort to cut its citizens off from the rest of the world, according to new reports.

Tehran instituted an internet blackout on Jan. 8 after weeks of increasingly violent nationwide protests over Iran’s faltering economy. Some Iranians were able to access the internet in certain sectors outside large cities, but large population centers had unstable internet connections.

Starlink terminals, which use GPS signaling to connect to the internet via satellite relay, were seen as a way to circumvent the blackout.

But data from gpsjam.org shows increased GPS interference around large cities in Iran after the internet blackout took effect, suggesting Iranian authorities were aware of the Starlink workaround.

Active interference from the Iranian government has created significant internet instability for users, with reports indicating packet loss, in which data fails to be transported completely, reaching as high as 80%.

This interference is believed to involve flooding the Starlink satellites’ transmission with digital noise or spoofed GPS signals, producing unstable connections on the ground.

Starlink users in Iran also risk being arrested and having their property confiscated. It has been illegal to own a Starlink terminal in Iran since June.

The electronic warfare tactics are mostly, if not entirely, targeting Starlink’s consumer products on the ground in Iran, not Starlink’s proprietary satellites.

Russia attempted to attack Starlink satellites directly during its invasion of Ukraine, but the installations needed to target the satellite constellations were massive and easy targets for Ukrainian forces.

The GPS jamming techniques seemingly used this month against protesters were used by Iran during its 12-day war with Israel in June, as Tehran looked to control the flow of information out of the country. At that time, Iran deployed the Russian-made Murmansk-BN military jammer, which has counter-GPS capabilities.

SpaceX CEO Elon Musk announced he was waiving Starlink subscription fees for all users in Iran this week, though it’s uncertain how that will counter Tehran’s electronic warfare. Exact numbers are not public, but estimates suggest Starlink has more than 30,000 users in Iran.

NasNet, one of the largest communities of Starlink users in Iran, said that a recent Starlink software update significantly reduced package loss to 10%, indicating that Starlink engineers may be working to circumvent Iran’s jamming tactics.

However, NasNet insisted that connections in the country are still unstable and the regime has continued to update its own electronic warfare strategy to adjust to updates from Starlink.