Operation of radar equipment is one of the key facilities used by navigators
to gather situational awareness about their surroundings. With an ever
increasing need for always-running logistics and tighter shipping schedules,
operators are relying more and more on computerized instruments and their
indications. As a result, modern ships have become a complex cyber-physical
system in which sensors and computers constantly communicate and coordinate. In
this work, we discuss novel threats related to the radar system, which is one
of the most security-sensitive component on a ship. In detail, we first discuss
some new attacks capable of compromising the integrity of data displayed on a
radar system, with potentially catastrophic impacts on the crew' situational
awareness or even safety itself. Then, we present a detection system aimed at
highlighting anomalies in the radar video feed, requiring no modifications to
the target ship configuration. Finally, we stimulate our detection system by
performing the attacks inside of a simulated environment. The experimental
results clearly indicate that the attacks are feasible, rather easy to carry
out, and hard-to-detect. Moreover, they prove that the proposed detection
technique is effective
