An Inertial Navigation System (INS) estimates an object’s position, velocity, and attitude by measuring motion with gyroscopes and accelerometers. It does not depend on external signals such as GPS, which makes it useful in aircraft, missiles, submarines, and other platforms that must keep navigating even when radio links are unavailable or jammed.
In cyber security, INS matters because it sits inside safety-critical guidance software. Attackers may try to tamper with calibration data, sensor fusion logic, or update pipelines to alter how the system interprets motion. Defenders look for integrity checks, signed firmware, test validation, and strict access control around navigation code. In dual-use engineering environments, INS-related software can be a sensitive target because small changes in filtering or correction routines can have large physical effects.