The Swedish Defence Research Agency (Totalförsvarets forskningsinstitut, FOI) has developed a new methodological support on behalf of the Civil Defence and Resilience Agency (MCF, formerly MSB). This support is intended to help organisations analyse the consequences of disruptions in their reliance on global satellite navigation systems (GNSS) for time and frequency.
– Precise time is extremely important for society in many technological applications: in mobile phone networks, in power grids, when computers need to be connected to each other, says Sofia Bergström, research engineer at the Electronic Warfare Division at FOI.
In addition to positioning, GNSS serves as a crucial source for time and frequency in modern technical systems. The atomic clocks on satellites are regularly synchronised with ground stations, providing an easily accessible source of accurate time. Dependence on these signals creates vulnerabilities in the event of disruptions in systems such as the American GPS, Russian GLONASS, Chinese BeiDou, and European Galileo.
According to FOI, the report is primarily aimed at actors conducting risk and vulnerability analyses (RSA). The methodological support is based on a seven-step process that begins with staffing an analysis group and mapping the organisation's prioritised commitments. Subsequently, redundancy and system dependencies are examined.
– The extent of the impact of a disruption depends, among other things, on whether it is peacetime, crisis, or war. This is why it is necessary to break down one's own operations to understand what vulnerabilities exist, says Åsa Davidsson, analyst at the Defence Analysis Division at FOI and co-author of the report.
The work concludes with assessing the consequences of potential disruptions. The collected knowledge is then to be integrated into the organisation's RSA to provide MCF with a comprehensive overview of society's technical dependencies.