Tony Soprano knew. When one of his follow poker players in season 5, episode 4 of The Sopranos asks Tony how he likes his new Cadillac Escalade, the fictional mobster responds, “I love it. After I pulled out that global positioning [system].”

OK, his language was a little more spicy than “system,” but the point is that Tony knew the dangers of being trackable.

The rest of us might not have the same concerns Tony had about being findable just about anywhere, but we should all realize how dangerous geolocation can be, even for those of us who aren’t mobsters, and take measures to protect ourselves.

The invisible attack vector

Every smartphone ping, every business application check-in and every IP address lookup creates a geolocation signature that threat actors can weaponize.

Cybercriminals use geolocation data to commit geographically targeted attacks, including phishing campaigns and flooding users with localized ads that carry potential malware. Geolocation enables surgical precision, turning location awareness into a weapon.

What makes these attacks particularly insidious is their concept as "floating zero days.” Essentially, malware can remain completely benign until it reaches its intended geographic target. Malicious files drift through networks harmlessly until geolocation triggers activate them.

Then, bam! The cyberattack strikes. Unfortunately, detection is nearly impossible until activation.

Stuxnet: The start of a revolution in cyberattacks

The most notorious example of geolocation-based targeting, is, of course, Stuxnet, the reference case for geolocation attacks. The worm included a highly specialized malware payload that activated only when it encountered specific industrial control systems in Iranian nuclear facilities.

Stuxnet ruined almost one-fifth of Iran's nuclear centrifuges, infected hundreds of thousands of computers and caused a thousand machines to physically fall apart.

Attacks inspired by Stuxnet have come a long way in the last 15 years. Geofencing has evolved into a standard attack methodology. The ongoing Astaroth malware campaign exemplifies this evolution. The attack clearly targeted Brazil, where 91% of infected systems reside.

The malware also successfully hit specific industries, with 27% of attacks striking manufacturing organizations and 18% victimizing the IT sector.

Geolocation-based attacks are hard to catch with traditional defenses

Why is geolocation data so effective as attack fuel? It supercharges social engineering by enabling hyper-personalized attacks. The SideWinder APT group demonstrates this technique masterfully, using spear phishing emails paired with geofenced payloads to ensure that only victims in specific countries, namely Bangladesh, Pakistan and Sri Lanka, receive malicious content.

Geolocation plays a pivotal role in cybersecurity defense by identifying unusual patterns of login attempts from geographically disparate locations and flagging them as potential account takeover attempts. But cybercriminals can sneak past that defense by manipulating location data to establish patterns of "normal" behavior before launching attacks.

Managed service providers (MSPs) and IT departments often assume virtual private networks (VPNs), anonymization and encryption provide adequate protection against geolocation-based attacks. Those measures are helpful, even necessary. But they’re not enough.

Sophisticated threat actors adapt quickly, using botnets to sneak malicious activity around common methods of defense.

Advanced persistent threat (APT) groups render traditional defenses ineffective by maintaining infrastructure that appears geographically distributed. Behind the scenes, threat groups can coordinate attacks through encrypted channels.

Mitigation strategies for the location-aware threat landscape

But MSPs and IT professionals aren’t helpless in defending against geolocation-enabled attacks. They need a multilayered approach that goes beyond traditional perimeter security. Organizations can protect themselves by:

• Implementing robust endpoint detection systems that monitor for activity from strange locations while maintaining operational flexibility to reduce susceptibility to cybercriminals’ trickery.
• Deploying decoy systems with fabricated location data to mislead attackers and gather intelligence on their targeting criteria and methodologies.
• Developing baseline location patterns for users and systems, enabling rapid detection of anomalous geographic activities that may indicate compromise or attack preparation.
• Treating all location-based authentication and authorization decisions as potentially compromised, requiring multiple verification factors beyond geographic position.

The future of location-based cyberattacks

The danger from geolocation-enabled attacks is going to get worse, not better. As internet of things (IoT) deployments expand and edge computing proliferates, the attack surface for geolocation-based threats will only grow.

The convergence of artificial intelligence with geolocation data promises even more sophisticated attack methodologies. Machine learning algorithms can identify optimal timing and targeting for location-based attacks, while deepfake technology could generate convincing local context for social engineering campaigns.

That’s why organizations have to understand that in today's threat landscape, location intelligence represents both a powerful defensive capability and a critical vulnerability. Investments in strengthening endpoint protection are a must, as is beefing-up authentication and authorization.

Organizations don’t have to go full Tony Soprano in their geolocation systems, but they do need to understand the threats related to geolocation and how to minimize them.

Sponsored and written by Acronis.