Investigating Cyber Threats To Space Infrastructure - Jessie Hamill-Stewart

so uh hello everyone thank you so much for for coming for this talk um I'm really excited to be here presenting to you today uh so my name is Jesse ham Stewart and I'm a cyber security CDT or PhD researcher at the University of b and the University of Bristol and so I do sort of social technical interdisiplinary research about cyber security and Space Systems uh and so you can see here that today today my presentation is going to give you an overview of cyber security applied to space infrastructure uh so let me show you this so the structure of the presentation is going to be this so I will show you uh broadly what I mean by

space infrastructure followed by some key sort of vulnerabilities some attacks that we see against uh space infrastructure followed by some attack Frameworks which which can be used to sort of assess what of attacks happen uh and then also what we can do to further improve cyber security for the space domain so just to begin who here believes that they have used some space infrastructure today in their day already oh that's good that's brilliant I I'm so happy that so many hands went up there um so that means that you are all aware of the fact that space infrastructure is everywhere it's a stains so many of the important sectors that we rely on for our our everyday

services so these are just three key areas that I wanted to pinpoint for this particular talk and one of them is imagery so satellites are constantly recording what's going on up there in space but they can also take really good high quality images of what's Happening down on Earth as well and this can really help to provide visual data about conflicts that are happening but also about uh weather that's happening and sort of disasters that are occurring from uh extreme weather conditions such as tsunami storms and such and so it's really helpful for providing that kind of uh visual data then there's Communications now this is another really important aspect of the services that satellites provide and this is

especially important for for instance uh militaries they rely on satellite Communications uh but also a lot of areas that are very rural and would otherwise not connect to the internet rely on satellites to provide that connection and one example of that is vessels which are traveling through Open Seas they have historically often had Vats on board very small parture terminals but they also now so I learned even today at the conference a lot of them now have started link connections as well so satellite Broadband is another really important aspect of space infrastructure and then we come to positioning navigation and timing now this type of service is provided by global navigation Satellite Systems uh you'll be familiar with GPS which is one

of those but then there's also Galileo which is provided by the European space agency and there are subsequent other types which are associated with regional National authorities so this type of satellite infrastructure is really important because positioning and navigation sustains directs brings accuracy to a lot of the transportation Industries and the transportation infrastructure on which we we will rely so I'm sure a lot of you I certainly used Google Maps on my way here today um and that was provided by those those satellite signals um timing is also really important here this is an important service which the sustains the energy grid which sustains the financial sector it's really important for uh a lot of Industries um and we we all rely

on it every day without without even realizing it so you will put your hands up when I asked you if you thought that you had you space infrastructure today and I was really happy but hopefully even more of you would put your hands up now so that's why we care about securing space infrastructure because it provides services to so many other sectors now when I talk about space infrastructure I'm largely referencing this sort of structure that you can see before you which is actually rather blurry luckily I'm going to explain it to you so the first thing that I think about when I think about space infrastructure is I think about the space segment now this is the segment

which is up there in orbit you know in the sky above us it's the International Space Station but it's also all of the satellites orbiting in in low off orbit and also geostationary as well and this is a really vulnerable segment because as you can probably guess you cannot reach the infrastructure that's up there um it's physically inaccessible which makes it unique compared to other types of industrial Control Systems which you can other re otherwise reach quite easily such as a a water treatment center you might be able to walk around and look for blinking lights and you might be able to sort out that infrastructure if something's gone wrong a lot more easily than you would um a a

satellite which is really far away and quite hard to access you can't walk up to it so this is a clear s vulnerability with the space segment then I move down to the user segment so satellites which are transmitted down from sat uh sorry signals which are being transmitted down from satellites to use a terminals on our phones and airplanes uh you know vessels energy growth and such this is the user segments this is where the users are and a key vulnerability within this segment is actually those signals which are being transmitted down they're quite weak which means that they're quite easy to intersect through spoofing attacks which make you think you're receiving the right signal you know the

right location data but you're actually not somewhere completely different or jamming attacks which completely cut out your access to that to that data and so that's a c um vulnerability within the user segment and I saw that today you know if you are following Google Maps on your phone you're and it's helping you to find you know your right destination um as soon as you go inside a building uh the accuracy reduces quite a lot and that's one of the reasons for that is because the signals are relatively weak and then I come to the ground segment now this is especially important because this is the infrastructure uh in which satellites and everything up there is operated and

monitored for on so from this point payloads are sent up to satellites to tell them where to go what they should be doing what's normal for them but this uh part of the infrastructure is also really related to a lot of the dependent Industries related to to satellites for instance uh internet modems which are globally distributed I include that in the ground segment because it's it's it's related infrastructure that's being controlled and monitored and it's this infrastructure which is especially vulnerable to a lot of the same vulnerabilities you would see in other types of industrial Control Systems if you were in aasis talk earlier you would have seen a lot of the vulnerabilities uh and the common issues with uh

industrial control for critical infrastructure such as energy nuclear and such and so some of those vulnerabilities do appear in the ground segment of Space Systems as well and that's where there is this sort of similarity um if you like uh for example Legacy systems and a key vulnerability here is the fact that remotely or physically this segment is one of the most accessible you know it's the most accessible it's more accessible than the space segments um and you can create really widespread disruption uh from from this segment here so that's a sort of summary of the key vulnerabilities um so this isn't just theoretical attacks have already started happening against uh space infrastructure so you'll see here um

that one of them is is this sort of summary of sophist ated attacks which have happened against satellite operators and one of the issues here was that attackers were found to be in Satellite operating infrastructure for many months and then they were intercepted before they were able to sort of escalate their attacks so that has happened um we also do see a lot of jamming and spoofing of GPS signals and you know GN gnss and we see that maybe in military conflicts as the example shows there um but but also for vessels which are acrossing the ocean and it also has sort of grounded airplanes as well so spoing and jamming is isn't is a worry because it's

already happening um and then there was the uh the attack against viasat's Kat Network just before Russia invaded Ukraine oh very quickly hands up if you heard about that attack good for a few of you okay but a few of you haven't as well um so this was the attack that essentially impacted thousands of internet modems across Europe um as well as Ukraine's ground military Communications and this attack really demonstrates the global nature of attacks against space infrastructure um because the ViaSat K network was targeted um and it impacted the the modems which sustains other critical Industries as well such as wind farms farms and Germany so you can see here that this isn't just a theoretical idea

these attacks are already happening and it's something that we definitely do need to do do do lots about and indeed there is some work to do something you know about so these are some attack Frameworks you'll be very familiar I'm sure with the Mitra attack framework um for IC but then they also have the other Matrix as well and this can be used to look at cyber attacks against space infrastructure and specifically the the the ground segments because it helps to pinpoint potential uh attack techniques uh and tactics which are being used and it also helps to therefore pin Point vulnerabilities in a way that compares it to other types of critical infrastructure but then

there's also attack Frameworks which are more established for the space domain such as the sparta framework which you can see there as well uh and I'd encourage you to to to look more closely at them because these pictures sure aren't clear um so there's more being done of course and more does need to be done than simply mapping out how uh attackers are targeting Space Systems one of the ways in which further research or F further work is being done in this domain is international standards these are of course really beneficial because they help to they help people and companies in the space sector to identify where they might be vulnerable and how they can mitigate any

any issues and this specifically is a good standard because you'll recognize the user segment the space segment and the ground segment from earlier uh but then there's also the leak segment uh which they look at which focuses on the links between ground um and user it's all about those uh those signals and then there's also the integration layer which looks at how the different segments come together as well and so this is a result of cooperation between experts in industry and Academia on a global level so this is a a good progress that that's moving forward to identify the vulnerabilities and and how to mitigate against cyber attacks against Space Systems then other of techniques that

are being used to some extent uh again you'll recognize ncsc's cyber Essentials framework uh which provides you'll know that that's not space specific but it helps to improve the security Baseline of companies throughout the supply chain of Space Systems uh because of course it's not just about the people who are launching the satellite or the people who are manufacturing the satellite it's about all of the people before that who are helping to to to um contribute to those components and so this helps to improve the overall uh cyber security and then within the UK at least the civil aviation Authority takes some sort of responsibility of providing certifications of space infrastructure before it goes up there to ensure that

it has been secured before it it gets to that point of being up in space and as I mentioned before quite inacessible and of course research so research is a very important aspect of discovering new vulnerabilities and looking at vulnerabilities in a different way in the context of Space Systems as with other types of critical infrastructure a specific framework that's been proposed uh to look at securing Space Systems in a slightly novel way uh that builds upon the established secure by Design framework is the secure by components approach and this uh splits components within space infrastructure into their subsystems and their subcomponents their components to look at all of the vulnerabilities associated with individual aspects of infrastructure and

this is very helpful for improving the cyber security of space overall by looking at the intricacies and the unique aspects of Space Systems so I definitely encourage you um have a look into these papers if you're interested in this area well that takes me to the Future uh so there's little doubt that space infrastructure is going to continue to expand both in space I'm sure we're we're all aware of the the lunar missions which are considered only uh a you know a point from which to launch subsequent missions to Mars so infrastructure is expanding in space but it's also expanding on the ground and as it expands we become even more dependent on Space uh and that makes it even more

important that we're recognizing the vulnerabilities and the ways in which it can be targeted I've also raised a couple of times today the fact that space infrastructure shares some really key vulnerabilities of other types of industrial control systems and therefore I think it's it's it would be it's quite important really that the expertise within other sectors is recognized and used to cooperate for more secure space infrastructure too because there's a lot of expertise that could be applied to the space sector which perhaps isn't at the moment um because space is sometimes um considered special and it is but it does also share some vulnerabilities and therefore um it could really help to recognize further what is going wrong in the space

sector how attackers are targeting it and therefore how the attacks can be mitigated for more secure space infrastructure going forwards and that brings me to the end of my presentation today I provided you with an overview of the vulnerabilities and I take you to my final slide to say thank you very much for listening and I welcome any questions let's continue the

discussion any questions got one Just sh 6,000 micro satellites m

more problem

with yeah I absolutely thank you for that question that's a very good point and um you know a little while ago someone asked me how many Elon musks can we really have you know and and and the answer is the answer is um there is there is inevitably going to be a limit on the amount of infrastructure that can be put in that low earth orbit area luckily a lot of the systems that we met that I mentioned that we really rely on in geostationary orbit which is a little bit higher and so for example a lot of the providers of positioning timing and navigation is in the layer above that and so it's extra secure but already

we're seeing lots of need to you know to What's The Word um lots of need to to essentially Dodge each other so there are lots of precision lots of movements the International Space Station has had to move out of the way of debris quite a few times and indeed space deis which is at the heart of what you're highlighting is inevitably going to be a big issue and not least because of the potential for lacking control of satellites so if there was downtime on satellite systems then there could be a potential for um for not being able to control where they're going and sometimes satellites need to be turned back on uh and if they're going to be turned back on that

helps them to remain in their orbital path where they should be and so it's really important that we kind of boils back down to cyber it's really important that we maintain control and security of the it infrastructure which is so important for operating and and and keeping an eye on what's Happening and ensuring that collisions can be avoided uh so yes I think there there will be a limit but luckily that's um it's not a problem yet problem thank you we're out of time You' got any more questions please feel free to grab just outside and uh ask more questions there thank you very much thank you