2023-04-26 13:42:27
The industrial Thales has managed to hack an ESA demonstration satellite during a cybersecurity exercise. This hack shows where the security holes are in the context of growing space warfare.
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The stakes are getting higher and higher. The issue of cybersecurity concerns all satellite operators, especially those who have contracts with governments and various armed forces. This is for example the case of SpaceX, which made the Starlink megaconstellation available to the Ukrainian Army in partnership with the Pentagon.
The takeover took place during an exercise organized by the European cybersecurity and space exhibition CYSAT. Thales managed to hack the nanosatellite OPS-SAT of the European Space Agency (ESA). The latter is a cubesatcubesat 3U – a cubesat is a nanosat whose volume unit (1U) corresponds to a cube with a side of 10 centimeters. The cubesat had been placed in low orbit in 2019. OPS-SAT is equipped with several state-of-the-art components allowing data stream exchanges of up to 50 Mbps, more efficient than most ESA satellites.
A successful ethical hacking exercise by Thales
During the exercise, several teams of hackers were in competition. To gain control, the Thales team first accessed the Attitude and Orbit Control Subsystem (SCAO). This system is used by any satellite to locate itself in space and to position itself. It controls the motors, reaction wheels, magnetic bars, sensorssensors stellar, and stays connected to thecomputercomputer on board.
Finally, the Thales team took control of the cubesat’s camera by introducing a code without getting caught. At that time, a malicious group might tamper with the images, hide certain covered areas, and so on. This exercise in real conditions will serve as an apprenticeship in cyber-resilience, becoming the daily life of most constellations, while the satellite is becoming more and more essential.
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