GNSS Spoofing Attacks and Countermeasures in Military Missile Systems: A Scoping Review

Global Navigation Satellite Systems (GNSSs) are widely integrated into military missile guidance systems to provide positioning, velocity, and timing information for accurate navigation and targeting. However, GNSS signals are inherently vulnerable due to low received power, susceptibility to interference, lack of authentication in civilian signals, and receiver-level weaknesses, making them susceptible to spoofing attacks that can mislead navigation receivers. This study presents a scoping review of GNSS spoofing threats and countermeasures relevant to military missile systems. Electronic databases and publishers, including IEEE Xplore, Scopus, Web of Science, and ScienceDirect, were systematically searched between January and March 2026, and studies were screened through titles/abstracts and full-text review based on predefined eligibility criteria. A narrative thematic synthesis approach was used to analyse the selected literature. A total of seventy studies were included in the final synthesis. The findings indicate that spoofing remains a feasible and evolving threat, with attack techniques ranging from replay and meaconing to coordinated multi-satellite signal manipulation. Countermeasures identified include signal quality monitoring, antenna-based techniques, GNSS/INS integration-based detection, machine learning approaches, and authentication methods. However, most existing approaches are evaluated under static or low-dynamic conditions. The review highlights a critical gap in the validation of spoofing protection and mitigation strategies under high-dynamic missile environments, suggesting the need for system-level evaluation and adaptive multi-layered defence strategies.