The Clock Risk: Precision Timing Infrastructure and the National Security Risk Financial Markets Have Never Priced

Di Criscio, Alessandro (2026): The Clock Risk: Precision Timing Infrastructure and the National Security Risk Financial Markets Have Never Priced.

Abstract

GPS is essential to modern financial markets for high-frequency trading, margin, and settlement. This infrastructure is extremely susceptible to "spoofing," in which attackers broadcast fictitious signals in order to change timestamps. Despite the systemic risk, this research finds that financial markets, across equity, options, and credit sectors, fail to price this vulnerability. This study identifies a structural "blind spot" brought about by the lack of a risk-modeling framework for timing failure by examining market responses to recorded spoofing instances. Foreign state actors might meddle with U.S. financial systems with plausible deniability in the absence of a necessary, functional, land-based backup system, posing a significant threat to national security.

• Item Type: MPRA Paper
• Language: English
• Keywords: Precision Timing, GPS Spoofing, Financial Market Risk, Systemic Risk, Infrastructure Vulnerability, High-Frequency Trading
• Subjects: E - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics > E4 - Money and Interest Rates > E44 - Financial Markets and the Macroeconomy; G - Financial Economics > G1 - General Financial Markets > G14 - Information and Market Efficiency ; Event Studies ; Insider Trading; G - Financial Economics > G2 - Financial Institutions and Services; G - Financial Economics > G2 - Financial Institutions and Services > G28 - Government Policy and Regulation

References

Bloomberg