GPS and location-based services may be among the most important recent technological advances, but they can also put privacy at risk.

• GPS not only facilitates navigation from point A to point B, but also provides a reliable and accurate source for synchronizing time and infrastructure, including within the power grid.

• GPS relies on a "constellation" of 24 major satellites orbiting the Earth to determine a target's longitude, latitude, speed and heading. GPS tracking was developed during the Cold War and has come a long way since its invention. Today, the technology is widely used in smartphones and mobile devices and is considered invaluable to first responders and military personnel, businesses and individuals.

• GPS can save lives in disaster relief, search and rescue, and traffic and airspace accident prevention. It drives economic productivity around the world, particularly in the areas of delivery, construction, weather and agriculture. Last but not least, GPS has been an essential part of national security since its introduction during the Cold War.

The reliability and free nature of GPS has allowed the development of thousands of applications that can be used in many aspects of a user's life. Given the ubiquity of technology around the world that uses GPS to coordinate location and time, it's easy to imagine the hypothetical confusion that could result from an attack on GPS frequencies. Follow the GPS Infrastructure Risk Summary to understand how important GPS security is to your business.

If you haven't heard the terms "jamming" and "spoofing" related to trucking telematics before, you're not alone, as both are very rare forms of telematics hacking in the United States.

Still, Guy Busnell, product manager for Spiren Communications' Location and Navigation business unit, warned that such activity is already happening in overseas freight markets and could eventually spread to the United States.

"GPS jamming is now common, jamming equipment is readily available and very cheap," he told fleet owners. "We know that criminals are starting to use signal jammers to commit crimes. In Italy, for example, criminal gangs target scrap metal shipments. They hijack a truck, force the driver to stop, take him captive, and then use GPS jammers so they can't track the cargo as they drive away."

One of the more "insidious" effects of GPS jamming, according to Buesnel's estimation, is that when the cell phone jammer is near the receiver, the receiver can start sending out dangerously misleading information, such as incorrect information about location and time.

"Without understanding how the receiver behaves in the face of jamming and spoofing attacks, you take a big risk by trusting the data it generates," he explained.

According to a 2015 Business Risk survey conducted by insurance broker The Graham Company, cybersecurity is also becoming a greater concern for the U.S. business community.

The firm surveyed 300 senior professionals in the United States and found that cybersecurity ranked highest among "business risks," with 21 percent of respondents ranking it as the number one threat they were most concerned about.

The survey also revealed that nearly half of respondents felt cyber risk was "serious" in the following situations:

A hacking incident resulted in the theft of customer information

The organization's network cannot be used

Theft of personal employee information

Intellectual property theft

The organization's website cannot be accessed

GPS interference is separate from identity theft. GPS jammers are typically small devices that emit strong radio signals that drown out weaker signals from GPS or other sources. Once the device is turned on, the location of a person or entity is quickly masked. Not only do cheap GPS jammers cause problems for law enforcement (and are often illegal), but they also raise concerns because they could disrupt the transportation industry and any other business that relies on GPS tracking.

A well-publicized example of the potential harm of wifi jammers made headlines when Newark Airport in New Jersey was effectively shut down after jammers inside company vehicles interfered with signal fires.

Network tracking. Cyberbullying occurs when someone uses technology to target or harass a victim online. Hacking into devices to track an individual's location and activities without their consent is an example of cyberbullying. This is often done by installing monitoring apps on mobile devices to track locations without the user's knowledge.

Location-based services. Location-based services (LBS) are software applications accessed from a mobile device that require information about the device's location. Some LBS are query-based, providing answers to user questions such as "Where is the nearest gas station?" Others are defined by a push notification model that distributes marketing materials such as coupons and special offers from area businesses or attractions. LBS is required by law to obtain user permission to track location. Once accepted, the application uses GPS to locate and track the whereabouts of the end user.

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