"The Weaponizing of Smartphone Location Data on The Battlefield"

Mike Fong, CEO of Privoro, stated that how each side collects the adversary's smartphone location data and shields their own could mean the difference between victory and defeat.  For soldiers on the battlefield, the act of turning on one's smartphone has been described as the digital equivalent of lighting a cigarette, as doing so creates a signal about one's location that can be picked up by the enemy.  Despite this risk, smartphones have played a meaningful role in recent conflicts, including Russia's invasion of Ukraine, where the devices have been used for communicating in the event of radio failure, disseminating on-the-ground footage to counter propaganda, and maintaining morale by staying in touch with family and friends.  Fong noted that monitoring the cellular networks in the conflict zone for a country at war provides the most comprehensive view of mobile device activity.  But before the conflict even begins, the nation can identify phones of interest, including the devices belonging to soldiers.  Fong stated that because mobile app location data is often sold to commercial data brokers and then repackaged and sold to individual customers, a country can access such a database and then pick out the phones likely belonging to soldiers.  Fong noted that of all the signals given off by smartphones in the normal course of operation, location data is perhaps the most valuable during battle.  Unlike captured conversations or call metadata, location data is actionable immediately.  Location data can reveal troop movements, supply routes, and even daily routines.  A cluster of troops in a given location may signal an important location.  Aggregated location data can also reveal associations between different groups.  Fong noted that there is a risk that the enemy can use soldiers' location data to direct targeted attacks against them.  One example is when a Russian general and his staff were killed in an airstrike in the early weeks of the invasion after his phone call was intercepted and geolocated by the Ukrainians.  Fong noted that to counter the capture of location data from soldiers' smartphones, many countries have understandably banned the presence of these devices on the battlefield.  In 2019, for instance, Russia's parliament unanimously voted to ban smartphones and tablets from being used by on-duty armed forces.

Help Net Security reports: "The Weaponizing of Smartphone Location Data on The Battlefield"