{"id":53541,"date":"2023-04-26T19:21:57","date_gmt":"2023-04-26T11:21:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp-productionenv-bjg9h2g2bgg5b8aa.southeastasia-01.azurewebsites.net\/news\/the-era-of-hybrid-warfare-how-space-became-the-latest-dimension-in-conflict\/"},"modified":"2023-04-26T19:21:57","modified_gmt":"2023-04-26T11:21:57","slug":"the-era-of-hybrid-warfare-how-space-became-the-latest-dimension-in-conflict","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/news\/the-era-of-hybrid-warfare-how-space-became-the-latest-dimension-in-conflict\/","title":{"rendered":"The Era of Hybrid Warfare: How Space Became the Latest Dimension in Conflict"},"content":{"rendered":"<\/p>\n

PARIS \u2014<\/em> Speaking at the Cysat event in Paris, France, Greg Wyler, founder and CEO of E-Space, said that gateways are the biggest security vulnerability in today\u2019s satellite networks.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe [E-Space] have no gateways. This is the largest attack surface,\u201d said Wyler, who is also speaking at the CyberLEO event next month. \u201cThe gateway is a giant, vulnerable elephant to be eaten. Gateways are a huge topic. I don\u2019t think many satellite companies have really looked through every attack vector. The Viasat<\/strong> [attack in Europe] came through the gateway. The gateways are really easy [to attack]. They have a fence around them. It is a key point, and weakness. They are easy to access for a foreign actor.\u201d<\/p>\n

Even though it was over a year ago, the attack on Viasat\u2019s network at the dawn of Russia\u2019s invasion of the Ukraine was a topic that dominated discussion at the event. Cl\u00e9mence Poirier, research fellow at the European Space Policy Institute<\/strong> (ESPI), talked in-depth about the numbers of attacks and the significance of them. She called the Viasat hack a \u2018Black Swan\u2019 moment for the industry. \u201cCompanies understood they need to allocate budgets for cybersecurity. They understood the need to implement cybersecurity measures. But, it will take time for things to change. It was an alarm raising event for the industry,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Poirier sees supply chains becoming a \u201cvery weak link\u201d in the security chain due to New Space companies often not investing enough in security, as well as the use of commercial off-the-shelf components.<\/p>\n

As a result, attacks against VPN networks are becoming \u201crather common\u201d in the aerospace sector, which Poirier claims has not heeded warnings. She said, \u201cIn the past decade, security researchers and cybersecurity companies, such as IOActive, have warned the satellite industry over the presence of critical software and hardware vulnerabilities. These have been largely ignored.\u201d<\/p>\n

So, what were the other lessons learned from the Viasat hack? Poirer said it showed that commercial space systems were easy targets for cyberattacks during a conflict. She said it showed that there are \u201cendless vulnerabilities\u201d in commercial space infrastructure. \u201cThere needs to be dedicated cybersecurity budget. The lack of space capabilities also creates cybersecurity issues in armed conflict. Russia demonstrated a much lower use of secure satcom use than expected. Ukraine has been able to eavesdrop on them. You need to have satellite capabilities to secure the battlefield.\u201d<\/p>\n

One of the main speakers on day one of Cysat was Oleksandr Potii, Brig. Gen. Deputy General Head of the SSSCIP<\/strong> (State Service of Special Communications and Information Protection) of Ukraine, who spoke via a video link from Kyiv. He said that Russia\u2019s full-scale invasion of Ukraine was significant because it was the first armed conflict where cyberspace is a fully-fledged war domain. He said that the SSSCIP was tracking activity from 80+ hacking groups. Around 90% of Russian hacking groups are coordinated by Russian military command or linked to the government, he said.<\/p>\n

Potii called it \u201chybrid warfare\u201d on the battlefield. \u201cThey use all kind of attacks now. They are combining cyberattacks, PsyOps and conventional warfare. Satellite infrastructure is vulnerable. Cyber protection is vital.\u201d<\/p>\n

Potii also hailed the importance of Starlink in areas such as enabling key infrastructure, helping Ukrainian companies have communications, as well as helping in areas such as emergency services. He said, \u201cStarlink terminals have been very important where infrastructure has been destroyed. We are able to give internet service to our citizens at these times. We have maybe 10,000 Starlink terminals in Ukraine, but I don\u2019t have the exact number.\u201d Potii said the cyber attacks that were hitting Ukraine were not \u201ca big surprise to us.\u201d<\/p>\n

He added, \u201cWe were ready to react to these cyberattacks. Our specialists were not surprised of a cyberattacks on satellites. We quickly reacted. It did not have a huge negative impact on our military communications. Satellites have really helped us to build alternative communications for Internet communications.\u201d<\/p>\n

Potii also said that Russia was using satellite technology to spread their propaganda and that they are focusing on some 70 million Russian speaking people from the British Isles to the Urals. \u201cRussia engages the inhabitants of the temporarily controlled areas into the Russian world. There are local channels. Russian sees satellite TV as a way of isolating people from information. Ukraine\u2019s efforts to stop this disinformation is key part of our space efforts.\u201d<\/p>\n

Guillaume de La Brosse, head of Space Innovation, Start-Ups, Economics, DG Defence Industry and Space for the European Commission<\/strong> admitted that the stakes are getting \u201chigher and higher\u201d when it comes to security and space. \u201cSpace is no longer immune from actors \u2013 state or non-state actors. The Commission is aware about this. Space is becoming more contested. Space is becoming a critical infrastructure,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

One of things the EU wants to do is bring a greater collaboration in this area. In this regard, it is proposing an EU-ISAC, or information sharing and analysis center. \u201cWe know our U.S. friends have already done it. We want to develop and put it together in Europe. We need to have protection of the industrial value chain. We have tools at the European level. We need to provide a regulatory framework at EU level, even though many member states are developing national space strategies and laws.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

PARIS \u2014 Speaking at the Cysat event in Paris, France, Greg Wyler, founder and CEO of E-Space, said that gateways are the biggest security vulnerability in today\u2019s satellite networks. \u201cWe [E-Space] have no gateways. This is the largest attack surface,\u201d said Wyler, who is also speaking at the CyberLEO event next month. \u201cThe gateway is […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":53542,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-53541","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/53541"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=53541"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/53541\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/53542"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=53541"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=53541"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=53541"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}