Cybersecurity

The cyber threat in outer space

Satellites that orbit the Earth form the exoskeleton of the world’s critical infrastructure. Global communications, air transport, maritime trade, financial services, weather and environmental monitoring, and defense systems all depend on an expansive network of satellites in space. As the September 2014 cyber attack on the US weather system starkly demonstrated, the strategic space-based assets of America and other nations have serious cyber vulnerabilities. In the maritime arena too, space-based monitoring systems are regularly being jammed or spoofed by vessel operators entering false information in order to disguise their illicit activities.

The vulnerability of satellites, their ground stations, and other space assets to cyber attack is often overlooked in wider discussions of cyber threats to critical national infrastructure. Yet just as with other digital networked systems, satellites are vulnerable to cyber attacks that include data theft, jamming, spoofing, and satellite hijacking.