181. A hacker’s final frontier — Space

Summary

Click Here Podcast Episode 181: A Hacker’s Final Frontier — Space

Release Date: November 8, 2024
Host: Dina Temple-Raston
Produced By: Recorded Future News

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Introduction

In Episode 181 of Click Here, host Dina Temple-Raston delves into the intricate and often overlooked realm of cybersecurity in space. Titled "A Hacker’s Final Frontier — Space," the episode explores the vulnerabilities of modern space missions, the evolving threats posed by adversarial nations, and the collaborative efforts required to safeguard our celestial assets.

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1. The Story of Odie: Modern Space Missions and Cybersecurity Challenges

Dina opens the episode by recounting the recent narrative of "Odie," a lunar lander developed by Intuitive Machines. Unlike the historic Apollo missions, Odie's mission was threatened not by mechanical failure but by a critical malfunction in its navigation system.

Dina Temple-Raston [00:30]: "Odie didn't have humans on board, so there was no one to physically MacGyver the laser altimeter."

This incident highlighted the reliance on sophisticated software systems in contemporary space missions and the potential cybersecurity risks that accompany them. The Intuitive Machines team ingeniously hacked into Odie's navigation systems to override the faulty instrument, averting mission failure. However, Dina underscores the broader implication:

Dina [01:34]: "Space, the final frontier, could end up being a hacker's dream. Unless we do something."

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2. Cyber Threats in Space: An Emerging National Security Concern

The discussion shifts to the strategic significance of space in national security. Adversarial nations like China and Russia pose significant threats through potential cyberattacks that could cripple satellite communications, observational capabilities, and critical infrastructure.

Dina [04:27]: "Cyberattacks could prevent the Pentagon from talking to satellites it depends on to communicate with troops on the ground."

She traces the U.S. response, highlighting the establishment of the Space Force under the Trump administration and the Biden administration's bolstered partnerships with commercial space companies to maintain a technological edge.

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3. Capella Space’s Role in National Security and the Russia-Ukraine Conflict

Frank Baucus, CEO of Capella Space, provides insight into the intersection of commercial space enterprises and national security.

Frank Baucus [04:49]: "90% of what we do is national security focused for sovereign countries."

During the Russia-Ukraine conflict, Capella's radar imaging satellites played a pivotal role. Despite Russia's attempt to obscure troop movements by anticipating limitations in satellite surveillance through cloud cover and night operations, Capella's technology pierced these barriers.

Frank [06:13]: "Russia delayed the invasion of Ukraine by about a week and a half... But Russia was wrong. Frank's satellites could see what was happening really clearly."

This timely intelligence provided unclassified, transparent information that was crucial for global diplomatic responses, showcasing the indispensable role of commercial satellites in modern conflicts.

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4. Accelerating Satellite Data Delivery: From Hours to Minutes

David Weissmiller of FreedomSpace emphasizes the advancements in satellite data retrieval times, transforming mission planning from a 48-72 hour wait to actionable, under-an-hour deliveries.

David Weissmiller [07:33]: "The benchmark really is being able to request an Earth observation and being able to deliver that in under an hour."

Frank Baucus [07:58]: "The time from requesting information and an image of the Earth to delivery to the warfighter for mission planning... [has decreased to] tactically relevant timelines."

This acceleration is vital for military operations that require real-time intelligence and responsive decision-making.

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5. The Menace of Space Debris and Satellite Weaponization

Transitioning to the issue of space debris, Dina introduces Alexis Truitt from IARPA, who tracks orbiting debris and its implications for satellite security.

Alexis Truitt [12:19]: "The amount of space debris that we have to deal with day to day, there are over 100 million pieces of debris greater than 1 millimeter in size."

The episode underscores the dual threats posed by space junk: potential collisions impacting satellite operations and the ease with which old satellites can be hacked or repurposed as weapons.

Frank Baucus [13:56]: "If you were to take control of a satellite that had propulsion capability, you could potentially turn it into a kinetic threat."

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6. Collaborative Efforts and the Need for Standards

The conversation highlights the necessity of establishing cybersecurity standards and collaborative frameworks to mitigate these threats. Organizations like Space ISAC facilitate information sharing between public and private sectors to enhance resilience against cyberattacks.

Frank Baucus [15:35]: "It was not a surgical type of attack... it affected all of the Weissach ground infrastructure to include... the command and control of the wind turbines in Germany."

This incident exemplifies the cascading effects of cyberattacks on interconnected systems, reinforcing the urgency for unified security protocols.

Alexis Truitt [18:08]: "Space is the new wild west... we're hoping to develop a system of systems architecture that will allow us to tip and cue across multiple sensors to maintain custody of debris to alert those decision makers with a rapid revisit rate."

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7. Proactive Defense and Future Directions

The episode concludes by emphasizing the importance of proactive defense strategies in space cybersecurity. Drawing parallels to the Internet's evolution, where standards became essential post-adoption, space officials aim to preemptively establish norms to counteract emerging threats.

David Weissmiller [19:47]: "The adversary's getting smarter, we have to get smarter with them."

Frank Baucus [17:25]: "We're seeing that in the space environment as well. I could take you into my security briefing... all of the threats to our infrastructure... we had a conversation about those threats and the information coming from the ISAC."

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Conclusion

Dina Temple-Raston wraps up the episode by highlighting the intricate challenges of securing space—ranging from cyberattacks and space debris to the need for international collaboration and standardized security measures. As humanity ventures deeper into the cosmos, ensuring the security and sustainability of our space endeavors remains paramount.

Dina [19:47]: "Officials have a chance to create standards and norms to get ahead of the security issues before it's too late."

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Key Takeaways

• Cybersecurity in Space: Modern space missions are increasingly dependent on sophisticated software systems, making them vulnerable to cyber threats.

• Commercial and National Security Synergy: Private space companies like Capella Space play a crucial role in national security through advanced satellite technologies.

• Space Debris as a Threat: The burgeoning issue of space debris not only poses collision risks but also potential vectors for cyberweaponization.

• Need for Standards: Establishing international cybersecurity standards and collaborative frameworks is essential to secure space infrastructure.

• Proactive Defense Strategies: Anticipating and mitigating threats through proactive measures can safeguard space missions and national security interests.

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This detailed summary encapsulates the critical discussions and insights from Click Here Episode 181, providing a comprehensive overview for listeners and enthusiasts eager to understand the intersection of cybersecurity and space.

Transcript

[Dina Temple Raston]

From Recorded Future News, I'm Dina Temple Reston and this is Click here. Last week, we took you inside a space mission. We told you the story of Odie, the little lunar lander that could. And we introduced you to some of the people at the Houston aerospace company that created it and sent it to the moon.

[Frank Baucus]

Four, three, two, one, ignition.

[Jon Favreau]

And liftoff.

[Frank Baucus]

Go, SpaceX.

[Dina Temple Raston]

And everything was going according to plan when just hours before Odie was set to land, disaster struck. Remember Apollo 13?

[Frank Baucus]

Hey, we've got a problem here. This is Houston. Say again, please. Houston, we have a problem.

[Dina Temple Raston]

In Apollo 13's case, an explosion had disabled the spacecraft's electrical and life support systems. Odie's problem was less dramatic, but no less critical. An instrument that would help it land wasn't working.

[David Weissmiller]

My partner comes in and goes, hey, Tim, the laser altimeters aren't going to fire. And the blood just drained from my face.

[Dina Temple Raston]

Odie didn't have humans on board, so there was no one to physically MacGyver the laser altimeter. So as we described last week, the team at Intuitive Machines ended up hacking into Odie's navigation systems and kind of overrode them.

[David Weissmiller]

We figured how we could rewrite the software to go, hey, the telescope, which.

[Dina Temple Raston]

On the one hand is pretty amazing because they didn't have to scrub the mission, but on the other hand, it lays out how different this modern space age is from the one that preceded it. Private companies are taking the lead in today's missions. And because they've all got their own networks and their own approach to cybersecurity, space, the final frontier, could end up being a hacker's dream. Unless we do something. I'm Dina Temple Raston and this is Click Here, a podcast about all things cyber and intelligence. We tell true stories about the people making and breaking our digital world and today, securing the cyberspace in space. I moderated a panel of experts at the Value of Space Summit in Colorado Springs in late September. Think of it as a conference where a lot of smart people who work on space issues talk about what keeps them up at night.

[Frank Baucus]

I actually did a presentation on cybersecurity for Space Systems in 1998. So we've been talking about it for a long time. Back then, the concept in a lot of the conversation was theoretical. Today, because it's real, it's here. We live it every day.

[Dina Temple Raston]

Stay with us.

[Jon Favreau]

If you're getting tired of the same old Sunday routine of drinking coffee and doom scrolling, try something new and listen to Offline with me, Jon Favreau. Offline is a different kind of Sunday show. A chance to step away from our social media fueled news cycles and hear smarter, lighter conversations about all the ways that our chronically online existence is shaping everything about the way we interact with the world around us. So put down your screens, grab your headphones and listen to new episodes of Offline every Sunday, wherever you get your podcasts.

[Dina Temple Raston]

From. Recorded future news. This is Click here. I'm Dina Temple. Rest an important national security issue a lot of people wouldn't necessarily think of is the threat posed by adversaries like China and Russia in space. Cyberattacks, at least in theory, could prevent the Pentagon from talking to satellites it depends on to communic with troops on the ground. It could blind space observation that keeps an eye on weather or attracts oil tankers. So in response to this potential threat, the Trump administration set up a space force. And the Biden administration, for its part, had stepped up partnerships with commercial space companies, all in a bid to find some technical edge. Frank Baucus joined me on the panel. He's the CEO of a company called Capella Space. It makes small radar imaging satellites that can see through clouds.

[Frank Baucus]

It's interesting being the CEO of a commercial space company, or at least what most people perceive as a commercial space company. The reality is 90% of what we do is national security focused for sovereign countries. And this became very clear during the Russian Ukraine conflict. And quite frankly, before then, Capella made the decision to start monitoring that event. While we were not under contract with anybody to consume that information, it was a world event. We knew that it would affect what was happening in the region.

[Alexis Truitt]

U.S. officials believe Russia is laying the groundwork to invade Ukraine. And more than 100,000 Russian troops have surrounded Ukraine on three sides. And now Moscow is denying.

[Frank Baucus]

And we were able to monitor what Russia was doing to prepare for that invasion into the Ukraine. It just so happens that we were recently under contract with the nro. At the time, we weren't providing data yet to the nro.

[Dina Temple Raston]

Explain the nro.

[Frank Baucus]

Oh, the National Reconnaissance Office, the agency who is responsible for Earth observation from a US national security perspective. And so because we had that data set and our data set, because we're a commercial company, we own and operate our own satellites, we were able to provide that information globally. So we provided the information about what Russia was doing. Russia had delayed that.

[Dina Temple Raston]

And according to Frank, Russia delayed the invasion of Ukraine by about a week and a half, essentially to wait for more clouds because they thought commercial satellites wouldn't be able to monitor what they were doing through clouds and at night. But Russia was wrong. Frank's satellites could see what was happening really clearly, which turned out to be critical to the early response to the invasion.

[Frank Baucus]

We were able to make that information available to the global media. That information was then made public immediately, and it played a very significant role in the diplomatic response to Russia. It's one of the reasons that the Western countries in Europe, the United States, and many other countries were able to all come together, because the information was unclassified, public, transparent. People could without question know what was going on.

[David Weissmiller]

And Frank's story about being able to deliver that unclassified information is a huge progression in where we've come from.

[Dina Temple Raston]

That's David Weissmiller. He's the executive director at a company called FreedomSpace, which is a kind of software and antenna broker. They have about 50 ground stations around the world and pull down data from satellites like Frank's. And he says the ability to do that has become lightning fast.

[David Weissmiller]

And the benchmark really is being able to request an Earth observation and being able to deliver that in under an hour.

[Dina Temple Raston]

Three years ago, what would have been the time?

[David Weissmiller]

It would be. It would be several hours, if not days.

[Dina Temple Raston]

That previous time lag, Frank Baca said, was a really big problem, particularly if information was for military use.

[Frank Baucus]

The time from requesting information and an image of the Earth to delivery to the warfighter for mission planning. And what they were working on in many cases was 48 hours to 72 hours. So, in other words, not tactically relevant. So in the last three years, we've seen that come down right into tactically relevant timelines, which is a huge leap forward.

[Dina Temple Raston]

China began testing weapons that could disable satellites about 20 years ago, and now they can fire warheads that destroy satellites or laser beams that can fry the sensors that allow them to see. What everyone is bracing for now is a cyberattack against a satellite or a spacecraft. In the case of odi, the lunar lander that we focused on last week, the people who hacked into its navigation system were the. But imagine for a moment if those coders weren't trying to keep Odie safe, but instead wanted to hurt Odie. That's the danger they face now. Stay with us.

[Joseph Cox]

Hey, I'm Joseph Cox, the host of another podcast I think you'll like the 404 Media Podcast. We're an independent news outlet covering the bleeding edge of technology, and every week we discuss our latest stories, whether that's how AI images are taking over Facebook and fooling people, how drugs are being Sold on Instagram or the spread of AI enabled surveillance cameras. We hold tech to account. Catch me and the rest of the 404 Media gang wherever you listen. Just search for the 404 Media podcast. Chat to you soon.

[Dina Temple Raston]

ChatGPT AI Machines Satellite Engine ignition Click here and lift up. That's the sound of the Sputnik satellite. The Soviets launched it into space almost 70 years ago in 1957. And for three months it settled into an orbit almost 600 miles above the Earth. And at the time, no one was quite sure what it was for. But what was clear was that the Soviet succeeded in ushering in a new age, the space age, and the US Was behind. President John F. Kennedy said as much.

[Frank Baucus]

Second Rivers armed We have examined where we are strong and where we are not. Now it is time to take longer strides. Time for a great new American enterprise. Time for this nation to take a clearly leading role in space achievement, which in many ways may hold the key to our future on Earth1 and liftoff.

[David Weissmiller]

Of the space shuttle Discovery.

[Dina Temple Raston]

Since that iconic Kennedy speech, many thousands of satellites have picked up where Sputnik left off. The problem is that these satellites don't live forever. Some fall to Earth and others live in a kind of limbo. And it's these satellites just hanging out in space, moving along with nothing really controlling them that has some experts worried because, well, there's a good chance they'll run into something out there in space. This debris, does it move at the same speed or does it change?

[Alexis Truitt]

So it doesn't have a thruster, but it will have a speed that will be defined with respect to its original orbit.

[Dina Temple Raston]

This is Alexis Truitt. She runs a space program that tracks space debris like this.

[Alexis Truitt]

So you have two satellites colliding with one another. Things are going to break up and spew about and they'll eventually form like a shell around the Earth at that altitude where those satellites were orbiting.

[Dina Temple Raston]

Basically lots of little junkyards spinning around the Earth. Alexis works at one of the U.S. government's most creative agencies, IARPA. And IARPA is supposed to solve problems for the Director of National Intelligence. Space junk. And the damage it could do has become one of those problems.

[Alexis Truitt]

This is an ARPA hard problem, as we like to say. Just to put it in Earthling terms. Just imagine how fast everything is going in orbit. And the average impact speed between two satellites or a satellite and a piece of debris that could collide. That impact speed is 22,000 miles per hour in low Earth orbit. So that's 10 times faster than a speeding bullet.

[Dina Temple Raston]

She Sundays. It's like two Greyhound buses approaching an intersection at speed. And what that collision looks like, it's.

[Alexis Truitt]

More like an explosion rather than just a breakup.

[Dina Temple Raston]

Alexis runs a government program that tracks this kind of space debris to try to see if they can stop it from running into things. They're working with private companies and academics to see if they can put space junk literally on a map.

[Alexis Truitt]

The amount of space debris that we have to deal with day to day, there are over 100 million pieces of debris greater than 1 millimeter in size. And most of that debris is clustered in regions that we would really like to utilize for our satellite data and our day to day missions. So if we think about debris impacting our freedom of access to space, that's a threat in itself. And how would people take advantage of that? That's a big concern.

[Dina Temple Raston]

The project is only about a year old and they have international partners all looking for new ways to track space junk. And what worries them isn't just some old satellite that might fall to earth. It gets much more sinister than that because as Frank Baucus of Capella Space told us, these old time satellites could potentially be really easy to hack or even weaponize.

[Frank Baucus]

For a long time, small sats were being managed without encryption, without security, and they had propulsion capability. So if you were to take control of a satellite that had propulsion capability, you could potentially turn it into a kinetic threat. So that's one of the reasons why from a norms perspective and a security perspective, that we're looking to create encryption communications for the command and control of those satellites so that they can be managed and not turned into a threat to other space systems.

[Dina Temple Raston]

If this sounds far fetched, it shouldn't. In a way, it's already happened.

[Frank Baucus]

In Ukraine, the Russian Ukraine conflict, we saw a nation state attack a commercial company, ViaSat, and at the time, ViaSat had to take on that, that challenge on their own. Viasat since joined the Space isac.

[Dina Temple Raston]

Isac, that stands for Information Sharing and Analysis Center. The center is meant to facilitate collaboration between both the public and the private sector. It helps people prepare for and respond to vulnerabilities or incidents or threats. Shortly after Russian hackers attacked the ViaSat commercial satellite company, members of the Space ISAC got together to compare notes. Not just to understand what happened, but to see if others were in danger too.

[Frank Baucus]

The ISAC actually convened a meeting of all of the commercial Satcom companies and read them in so that they could have clearance for a day to actually talk about what really occurred and what the threat was. I mean, at the end of the day, Russia very specifically planted viruses in that ground infrastructure that took that ground infrastructure out.

[Dina Temple Raston]

The ground infrastructure Russia attacked was being used by the Ukrainian military to communicate with satellites supporting its armed forces. To make it even worse, thousands of people across Europe were depending on that satellite for Internet connections as well. So an attack meant to hobble Ukraine had an unexpected knock on effect.

[Frank Baucus]

It was not a surgical type of attack. It affected all of the Weissach ground infrastructure to include, by the way, the command and control of the wind turbines in Germany. And it took Germany, their wind turbines and their power grid offline. That wasn't. Well, we don't believe that was an intended component of that threat, but it absolutely happened.

[Dina Temple Raston]

But did that happen because there was a failure of imagination in what could happen or because they were really good?

[Frank Baucus]

I think it's really a combination of both. Right. And the purpose of our organization, right. Is to start thinking about what could happen. You know, not just mitigations of known threats, but also mitigations of what is potentially a threat to the environment. These things are all incredibly relevant. They happen every single day. This is not theoretical anymore. This is pragmatic defense and resilience in today's environment.

[Dina Temple Raston]

What makes all of this even more challenging is that older satellites run on something called SCADA systems. That stands for Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition. SCADA systems control a lot of industrial systems and critical infrastructure here on Earth, like power grids and water plants. Anything using a SCADA system is considered vulnerable because their software isn't updated all that often or maybe isn't even supported anymore. Frank Baucus and others are working with international partners to try to address that before those kinds of issues are exploited.

[Frank Baucus]

The standards component, it really occurs over time, right. As the demand for, I'm going to say, norms of operations in any particular area are needed.

[Dina Temple Raston]

That's what happened with the Internet. Didn't really take off until standards were established.

[Frank Baucus]

We're seeing that in the space environment as well. I could take you into my security briefing I had yesterday with my chief security officer of the company Capella. We had a conversation about all of the threats to our infrastructure, the ground systems, our space systems, our business IT infrastructure. And a lot of conversation about those threats and the information coming from the isac.

[Dina Temple Raston]

Alexis Truitt says standards could help with the problem of space junk too.

[Alexis Truitt]

Space is the new wild west. You know, there are no international regulations, but with regards to norms and standards, what we're hoping to develop as part of the program is to develop a system of systems architecture that will allow us to tip and cue per se across multiple sensors to maintain custody of debris to alert those decision makers with a rapid revisit rate. And then in the context of space threats, attribution is a big concern. So if something happens to my satellite, was it a debris strike or was it something else? So we want to provide that information to the people who need it.

[Frank Baucus]

Yeah. And that that information around attribution and knowing what's going on is very critical to the owner operators of these satellites. Right. It was an intentional threat against the satellite. Was it unintentional? Was it naturally caused? Was it a debris scenario?

[Dina Temple Raston]

David Weissmiller said this is all a really complex puzzle to solve.

[David Weissmiller]

Because space is hard. We have a lot of specialized capability. You've got on orbit, you've got ground radars looking for debris and on orbit radars as well. But it's a combined effort from a large array of different specialties to be able to operate and maintain your capabilities in space.

[Dina Temple Raston]

When computer scientists invented the Internet, it didn't really occur to them that it might be used to do bad things. We didn't really see the problems coming with social media either. With space officials have a chance to create standards and norms to get ahead of the security issues before it's too late.

[David Weissmiller]

The adversary's getting smarter, we have to get smarter with them. So there's a lot of out of the box thinking when you think of an adversary and we all have to be on our toes.

[Dina Temple Raston]

This is Click Here. From Recorded Future News, this has been Click Here. It was written and produced by Megan Dietrich, Sean Powers, Jade Abdul Malik, Erica Gaida and me, Tina Temple Raston. It was edited by Karen Duffin. We'll be back on Tuesday with an all new episode of Click Here. Have a great weekend.

[Unknown]

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