The satellite hacks They are more common than anyone can imagine. If we see satellites as communication tools that can determine the fate of millions of people, gravity is enormous. And there are several institutions that have suffered, as the POT and SpaceX: Ukraine recently fell victim to Russia in this regard.
“People rarely stop to think how much their daily lives depend on these artificial ‘moons’,” notes Vilio Petkauskas in an article for Cybernews. “From a ride-sharing passenger or driver to a stockbroker, nearly everyone relies on seamless satellite communication to get the digital services they need.”
In the military world it is much more serious, because literally the lives of thousands, millions of people can depend on a communication.
“The heavy reliance of many ground services on satellites means that the disruption or closure of space services would be catastrophic,” he noted. Mathieu Bailly, head of CYSEC’s Space Business Unit, to Cybernews.
More and more public and private organizations are putting satellites into orbit for their communications. And historically, there are several who have suffered satellite hacks.
Let’s look at some examples.
HBO and the grudge of an engineer
HBO in the 80s suffered one that was remembered by The New York Times, in a Computer Today note. When “The Falcon and the Snowman,” a 1985 spy movie directed by John Schlesinger, was to be broadcast, a certain Captain Midnight attacked the company’s satellite.
There was a printed message on the channel’s test card that read: “Good evening, HBO, from Captain Midnight. $12.95 a month? No way. (Watch out for the movie channel).”
What notes the NY Times, HBO broadcasts on the US East Coast were disrupted by the attack.
The authorities captured Captain Midnight: he was John MacDougall, an electrical engineer and owner of a satellite dish business. upset with HBO because the channel added a monthly fee for its services. He had to pay a $5,000 fine.
NASA has been affected several times by satellite hacks
In 2007 and 2008, NASA was the victim of two satellite hacks. According to Security Affairs, the more serious of the two cases occurred in 2008, when control of the Terra EOS Earth Observing System satellite was interrupted for 2 minutes in June and another 9 minutes in October.
The person who took over the satellites did nothing with them.
A year earlier, the Landsat-7 received a computer attack, without major consequences.
In 2011, the US agency was targeted by Chinese hackers, who took control of some of its satellites for 11 minutes. There was also no major damage to regret.
SpaceX offered a job to the Starlink hacker
Starlink, Elon Musk’s SpaceX satellite internet company, suffered the hacking of one of its satellites by the Belgian Lennert Wouters. This used a tool of just 25 dollars to gain access to the internet system.
Musk’s company fixed the problem and, He even offered Wouters a job.
The Russian and Ukrainian war, from space
As part of the conflict between Russia and Ukraine, caused by the invasion of the first to the second last February, Vladimir Putin’s army has attacked a satellite Internet network in the country of Volodymir Zelenski.
The digital assault on Viasat’s KA-SAT network happened at the end of February, when Russian armor entered Ukraine, Reuters reported. US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said the cyberattack was intended to “disrupt the command and control of Ukraine during the invasion, and Those actions had an indirect impact on other European countries.”
The Russian hack knocked out tens of thousands of modems not only in Ukraine, but also in the United States, Canada, Estonia, and the European Union.
The conflicts continue and the war, beyond the land, the air and the sea, has also spread to space.