This article was first published in the May 2016 issue of WIRED magazine. Be the first to read WIRED's articles in print before they're posted online, and get your hands on loads of additional content by subscribing online. For more stories from WIRED's Security issue, click here.
Satellites are vital elements of critical infrastructure. Wealthy and poor countries alike depend on them for communication, for the internet, for environmental monitoring and navigation. And, as the internet of things takes shape, our dependency on them will grow exponentially.
On-board computers, designed to allow for remote configurations and upgrades to satellite systems, make them vulnerable to cyberattack. Many satellites are designed to have very long life cycles, so their technology will fall behind, creating serious legacy issues. The pace at which technology evolves will always make it hard, if not impossible, to find a timely response to space cyber-threats. Several reports suggest that states are already developing these cyberattack capabilities. Two types in particular that need to be urgently addressed: jamming and spoofing; and taking physical control of a satellite.
Jamming consists of flooding or overpowering a satellite signal. These attacks are frequently aimed at global navigation satellite system (GNSS) satellites, which contain precise clocks and broadcast timing information used by a host of applications that are vital to our day-to-day functions. Such attacks can take down a mobile-phone network: North Korea has conducted a series of jamming attacks on South Korea in recent years that have impacted Seoul's phone network for up to a week at a time.
Spoofing goes beyond jamming to replace a flooded signal with a false one. Combined jamming and spoofing attacks can potentially be used to take down the power grid, financial services and a host of other infrastructure operations. It could also be used to feed false location information to trucks, ships or other GNSS-dependent vehicles, causing them to collide or travel to incorrect locations, which could have significant military implications.
An attempt to take physical control of a satellite can take the form of a command from the ground that causes it to move out of its orbit. If the orbit enters the pathway of another satellite the collision will destroy one or both of them, creating space debris that in turn poses risks for other satellites. Another type of direct-control attack could be made to expose the satellite's solar panels to the Sun ("grilling") causing irreparable damage and rendering the satellite unable to function. In a situation of conflict, the ability to disable or destroy another country's satellites would offer a significant military advantage.
Back on Earth, ground stations - or satellite-control centres - are highly automated and their security is just as vital. There are limits on how far commercial satellite operators can secure their communications, because telemetry datalinks generally employ local networks, but encryption is an essential and cost-effective procedure that every operator ought to be able to use.
It is important to establish common international standards on cybersecurity in space now, as was done with space debris, and to share best practices to reduce cyberthreats.
Patricia Lewis is research director, international security, at Chatham House
This article was originally published by WIRED UK
