Everyone aboard the White Rose of Drachs could feel the $80 million superyacht turning...
But its navigation system assured them it was still on track.
It was a clear day in the Mediterranean. The 213-foot vessel was en route from Monaco to Rhodes... slicing through the water roughly 30 miles off the coast of Italy.
Up on the bridge, the crew manned a suite of high-end navigation equipment. It was the exact kind of gear you'd expect on one of the most luxurious yachts in the world.
The crew trusted their instruments. The ship's digital charts displayed a clean, steady route.
But behind the scenes, a different picture was taking shape.
A team of 'spoofers' was slowly taking the yacht off course...
They blasted GPS signals that were indistinguishable from the real thing – straight at the boat's antennae.
Every so often, the spoofers sent a signal suggesting the boat was slightly off course. That forced the crew to course-correct.
But the GPS signals were bogus. The boat was on track. And the crew was tricked into turning more and more off course... until eventually, the White Rose was cruising hundreds of meters out of the way.
The yacht's wake curved behind it. But the digital display stayed straight. And aside from that one clue, the crew had no way of knowing something was wrong.
Spoofing works by overriding a GPS signal with a stronger, false version of the same signal. The target device locks onto the counterfeit source, thinking it's genuine. Once that happens, it's easy to manipulate location data.
A boat can be moved off course the same way a drone can be redirected. And the onboard system will keep reporting that everything is fine.
Thankfully, the White Rose wasn't being attacked...
It was part of an experiment led by a research team from the University of Texas at Austin. They wanted to see how hard it would be to spoof a modern superyacht in open waters.
And as it turned out... it wasn't hard at all. It took just one device – a blue transmitter about the size of a briefcase – broadcasting from the upper deck.
This wasn't cutting-edge military gear. The spoofing box was compact, portable, and could be operated without specialized training.
It could be mounted on another ship... dropped from a drone... or flown over from miles away.
The team that designed the test included a few PhDs. But the system itself was simple enough for anyone to run. Once the code was loaded and the signal set, the attack was automatic.
The White Rose was just an example. But in a real-world military application, this type of attack could spell disaster.
Spoofing rarely sets off alarms until it's too late...
That's what makes this problem so serious. And it's no longer a theoretical concern. Any system that depends on GPS is now in play.
That includes many sides of the aerospace and defense industry. It's a growing blind spot in national security... one we're only beginning to address.
It's not the only security risk, either. In the age of AI, attacks are getting more sophisticated and harder to fight. The U.S. government can't afford to fall behind.
This year, the Pentagon set aside more than $140 billion for defense research, development, testing, and evaluation.
A lot of that testing budget is flowing into next-generation military technology... like secure satellite navigation GPS tools built specifically to stop attacks like spoofing.
And the spending isn't slowing down. Over the next five years, tens of billions of dollars are set to flow toward contractors building the systems the modern military relies on.
For investors, that's the real story. Security gaps are widening... and budgets are surging to close them.
The defense contractors solving those problems will be some of the market's strongest performers.
Regards,
Joel Litman
December 4, 2025
