Can hackers penetrate satellite?

Well, it's been a bit long time, no see folks, but we are back again. Today we've shuttled into the topic of space. We all know the universe is still not defined, yet humans are not even in the first stage of the discovery process. At first, we thought, will there be any privacy in space ? Interesting, eh? But after spacing out from a deep thinking, we decided to move with space hacking!! Yes, you read that correct. Curious, isn't!. So, Let's Launch.

Hacking satellites.

Before knowing about how hackers used to hack them. We need to know about two things.

1. How does the satellite communicate

2. DEF CON

1. Basic understanding of a satellite

The basic functionality of a satellite is to transmit/receive the radio frequency signal that operates in C-band signal which lies in between UHF and SHF bands of radio spectrum. This process happens due to the presence of transponder.

                                                                                                                                                                    Credits:NASA

Satellite resides in three orbits from the earth as we learned in high school. LEO (Low-Earth-Orbit), MEO (Medium-Earth-Orbit), GEO (Geostationary-Orbit).

LEO and MEO are basically used for television broadcasting and internet connectivity and the GEO are used for communicating with the astronauts and the ISS(International Space Station).  These satellites uses Radio Frequency (RF) for communication. There are various protocol involved in between these steps but let us explain in reels.

Satellite acts as a mediator between the space shuttles and the base station (Earth).  As said before these communicate over RF. So, it is possible to hack the RF or the hacker should need to gain the base station access, and they can access the satellite. But, surprisingly this isn't the case those RF can be hacked using software defined radios (SDR).

2. DEF CON

An open source community where the hackers meet up once a year in the month of August. It was started in the year 1993 to disclose their dark discoveries to the public that they had performed. August month is found to be alarming month to all the electronics, network and mobile related developers/engineers. They not only disclose vulnerability, but they do provide some CTF(capture the flag) events. The main motto of conducting the event was to encourage other hackers.

Since 2020 calendar was filled with pandemic they just gone virtual and to be precise this event was open to the public. They conducted an event call HACK-A-SAT where the individual/team can actually hack a satellite from where it was designed and kept inside a room in Las Vegas and it was found to be moving. CTF is no more an event it's actually hacking real devices in a simulated environment. Hackers from Poland won the competition. To know more about write-ups and winners click here.

But it does not stop here an individual researcher also hosted a CTF challenge as similar as
DEF CON  but this turns to be hardware. Combining these two parts and some basic googling and interest, a beginner can learn how to hack satellites. Event name:Nyansat

Satellite engineers found to be alarming after hearing this event. They were literally shocked that the hackers have finally found backdoors in the satellite. This is just a simulator. But the real incidents given below will blow your mind.

The Real Hacking Incidents

The real hacking took place in 1998 in the US German joint satellite. This hack was possible when the hackers were able to get the control access of the satellite by penetrating the ground station located at the Maryland. They literally burned the satellite by moving closer it to the sun orbit. This satellite however came back in pieces in 2011. Similar event occurred in 1999 but the hackers here asked for the government to pay for ransom.

Here, comes the fascinating part, US attacked the Chinese satellite back in 2006 were the Chinese government involved in helping hackers to find out the backdoors, similar hacking event occurred in US whether satellite where the Chinese government seems to be a suspect. 

Later in 2017 Chinese involved in hacking Indian high level video conferencing call for about 5-7 mins. Later it was identified and fixed. But this seems to be an alarming for ISRO(Indian Space Research Organization). 

Hacking the satellite is just simple like hacking a web system or having a cup of coffee. The hacker needs to be stringent and should be equipped with all forms of hacking like network, RF, Web, Space communication, Physics and space terminologies. He also requires an elite team to complete the hack without leaving any digital footprints. Satellite hacking as there are no perfect rules and guidelines at present like IoT.

If you guys are really interested in knowing more about satellite hacking just let us know in the comments section.