WASHINGTON — The Space ISAC, an industry group dedicated to space cybersecurity, is attempting to spread awareness of the risks satellites face, not only from cyberattacks, but additionally from potential anti-satellite weapons and severe space weather.
The nonprofit Space ISAC (Information Sharing and Evaluation Center) held a conference Oct. 17 in Colorado Springs to focus on the worth of satellites as crucial infrastructure that forms the backbone of the fashionable digital economy and enables services critical for on a regular basis life.
In a speech on the conference, Frank Backes, senior vp of Kratos Space Federal and a member of the Space ISAC board, said business and government satellite operators have to implement safeguards and defenses to make sure satellites can proceed delivering critical communications, statement, and navigation capabilities within the face of rapidly evolving risks within the space domain.
Backes is leaving his Kratos post and might be taking up next week as CEO of Capella Space, a radar imaging satellite operator.
He said cybersecurity vulnerabilities, Russian satellites stalking other nations’ assets in space, and severe weather events are the highest concerns for ISAC members.
As nations grow to be more depending on satellites, any disruptions to their services could have significant ripple effects on Earth, said Backes.
A key accomplishment of the Space ISAC this past yr was the establishment of a “watch center” facility to watch, analyze, and reply to threats to space systems in real time. The middle is co-located on the National Cybersecurity Center in Colorado Springs.
“This helps our ability to speak internationally, commercially, with our federal government, about threats against space systems,” Backes said.
The conflict in Ukraine has served as a serious wake-up call regarding the cyber threat to satellites, he said. And the results of attacks on space critical infrastructure weren’t limited to simply the country of Ukraine.
A cyberattack in February 2022 against Viasat’s KA-SAT network disrupted broadband satellite web access across Europe, Backes said. “That network was also getting used by Germany to regulate all of their wind farm infrastructure. And so when that attack occurred, the command and control of that wind farm went offline,” he added. “That entire power grid was impacted.”
Russian stalking satellites
Most recently, in early October, the Space ISAC watch center tracked the activities of Russia’s Luch Olymp K-2 geostationary spy satellite.
“Each time that satellite moves within the geostationary belt, it’s traversing the geo belt specifically to affect and gather information in regards to the business satellite communications infrastructure,” Backes said. “It has nestled up against and near satellites from Inmarsat. Intelsat, SES and others in an effort to disrupt and affect the business communications infrastructure.”
Analysts on the watch center also track space weather events that routinely affect satellites similar to solar flares that may disrupt electronics, clouds of solar plasma that may damage satellites and disturbances within the Earth’s magnetic field.
A fairly unusual threat emerged this yr, often known as the South Atlantic Anomaly. “That’s one in all the events that we’re also tracking due to its impact on low Earth orbit satellites,” Backes said.
The anomaly was identified within the Earth’s magnetic field over the South Atlantic region. Scientists described it as a weak spot within the Earth’s magnetic field, which protects the planet from high doses of solar wind and cosmic radiation. This anomaly may cause disturbances in orbiting satellites.
“Nearly every LEO satellite may be affected when flying through that individual area, because you will have very high energy particles,” said Backes.
Push to designate space sector as ‘critical infrastructure’
The Space ISAC is leading an effort to have the U.S. government designate space systems because the seventeenth U.S. critical infrastructure sector.
“I feel it’s overdue. I feel it must have been done yesterday,” Samuel Visner, technical fellow at Aerospace Corp. and vice chairman of the board of Space ISAC, said on the conference.
Supporters of this move argue that critical infrastructure designation would ensure emergency federal funding within the event of a serious disruption of critical services and more consistent access to federal government decision-making processes.
“This discussion is underway without delay in Washington,” said Visner. The Biden administration is reviewing options under Presidential Policy Directive 21.
The proposal to designate space as critical infrastructure has been criticized by some industry sectors that worry it would bring about more regulatory burdens.
“There are individuals who fear that this can be a regulatory move,” said Visner. But he pushed back on that criticism. “Many industries are regulated, but not because they’ve been designated as critical infrastructure sectors,” he said.
A choice must be made soon, Visner said. “While we are attempting to determine if we’re going to make that designation, our adversaries Russia and China have also decided that our space systems are critical infrastructure, they’re treating it that way, and constructing and demonstrating the aptitude to attack it.”