Cyber security in New Space

Companies like SpaceX are building swarms of low orbit satellites with the intention of providing high speed internet to regions without fast or reliable internet. This will add thousands of satellites to earth’s orbit, which increases the cyber security threat to the entire space industry. This article analyzes previous security threats to satellites in order to discover the motivations and characteristics behind future attacks. The sections of the space industry that are most under attack are ground stations, communications, and the satellites themselves.

Ground stations are responsible for communicating and controlling one or more satellites. This makes attacking them the easiest method of controlling satellites. Ground station cyber attacks are similar to cyber attacks on other institutions. A few examples of previous attacks include computer network exploits, cloud infrastructure exploits, and exploits in unpatched or outdated legacy software. Communications attacks are those that attempt to interfere with communications between satellites or satellites and earth. Examples consist of hijacking the signal of a radio satellite to transmit a custom message, or transmitting signals that appear to be legitimate but sending erroneous data. The last example could be used to make a GPS transmit inaccurate locations. Attacking satellites that are already in orbit is very difficult due to their isolation, but this can sometimes be achieved by sending signals from the ground that exploit vulnerabilities in the software or hardware on a satellite. This requires extensive knowledge of the hardware, software and communication stack of the satellite being attacked. The article finds that previous attacks have primarily been focused on ground targets due to the ease of access, but the recent increase in the number of satellites may cause attackers to change targets to communications or the satellites themselves.