Outer Space: To Boldly Go Where No Cyberattacker Has Gone Before

 

For the longest time that I can remember, I have always been a huge lover of astronomy.  Even during part of my college days I was a member of a local astronomy club, getting a good detail of the moon and other celestial objects in the universe through our low-tech telescope.  

My passion for that and even space travel continues till today, as I still watch videos on YouTube on the Apollo missions.  In fact, my favorite question that I like to ask of people is:  “Do you think space ends, or if it does, what is beyond it?”  Well, that will be a discussion for a later time.

But since the retirement of the Space Shuttles, it seems like the trend is now for private companies to launch their own kinds of spacecraft, some of the more famous ones that I can recall are those from Boeing and I think even Elon Musk.  But with this privatization, comes a new kind of issue that we thought could never happen before:  And that is, nothing but Cybersecurity.

In fact, people view it as such a serious matter that even top-level researchers at the California Polytechnic State University just released a scathing 95-page report on the specific Cyber related risks that could potentially happen.  The entire report can be viewed at this link:

https://ethics.calpoly.edu/spacecyber.html

One of the primary reasons cited for this heightened level of awareness is that many nations around the globe are also participating in this “space race” of sorts.  Coupled with the fact that some of them could be even rogue states like Russia, China, and North Korea, the problems could now really settle in. 

Another driver for this is the increasing level of interconnectivity between our own wireless devices, and all of the satellites that are up there, orbiting the Earth.  This is has been driven by the explosion of the Internet of Things, also known as the “IoT”. 

A good example of this is your GPS system.  When you make use of a tool, such as Google Maps, it is not the information that is stored onto your wireless device that is providing you with the directions.  Rather, it is the many GPS based satellites that are communicating with your wireless device. 

That is why there is much fear of the evolution of Smart Cars, because in all practicality, a Cyberattacker would just have to launch a threat variant at one of these satellites in order to cause a high level of confusion amongst drivers.

In fact, as much as we do it on the ground here, researchers are now even modelling that specific the Cyber threat variants in outer space.  One such effort is known as the “ICARUS”, which is an acronym that stands for “Imagining Cyberattacks to Anticipate Risks Unique to Space”.  In this framework, the researchers have detailed all  of the hypothetical variables that could lead to a security breach.  Some of these include:

*The attack vector.

*The type of exploits.

*Any potential threat actor motivations and incentives.

*The potential victims.

*Other space capabilities that an attack could compromise.

Through the above and many other of these kinds of variables, the researchers can model over 4 million Cyberattack scenarios (also firmly believe that Generative AI has to be a big part of this as well).  More information about this framework can be found at this link:

https://www.securityinfowatch.com/cybersecurity/press-release/55089421/cal-poly-releases-imagineering-report-to-anticipate-scenarios-for-outer-space-cyberattacks

Also, another driver that is causing huge concern for a Cyberattack in outer space is the increasing number of satellites that are now being launched into Earth Orbit.  For example, it has been estimated that since 2012, there has been an average of 2,600 new satellite launches on an annual basis. 

Yet another catalyst that is providing more motivation for the Cyberattacker to launch a threat variant into Outer Space is just its sheer vastness, and all of the complexities that go along with it.  Because of this, it is now much easier for him or her to hide their tracks, as opposed to launching security breaches down here on Earth.

Finally, another Cyber risk that is posed in the blackness above us is something that is referred to merely as “Space Junk”.  These are merely prototypes of rockets used for testing purposes.  Astonishingly enough, there are over 35,000 major pieces of this “Space Junk” out there, and even 1 million more that are smaller in nature.  In theory, it is feared that a Cyberattacker could target one of these pieces of “Space Junk”, and target it to crash towards an important satellite, such as a GPS location one.

My Thoughts On This:

I am by no means an expert on Outer Space, but IMHO, while its great researchers are starting to model Cyber threat variants in Outer Space, we are still a long way off in seeing a direct attack happening, for example, when one satellite intercepts another.  Rather,  I think the biggest concern right now should be if a Cyberattacker launches a malicious payload into Outer Space, and uses that to cause major damage, such as to our Critical Infrastructure.

With this kind of approach, it would be much more difficult to determine the root cause of a security breach, and produce ways to mitigate that particular from happening in the future.