Legions of information and wealth-seeking cybercriminals are engaged in coordinated efforts from the far reaches of the globe and some are nation-state-sponsored. These hackers are bright and innovative, resourceful when it matters, and harnessing the business-savvy to go where they can minimize effort and maximize profit.
“Firms with high-valued assets, data, technology, and proprietary knowledge are perfect targets for hackers that may search for vulnerable areas in the digital infrastructure or production supply chain,” according to Intertec Engineering.
The next great space race is upon us and nations as well as billionaires are looking to the Heavens and seeing promise—as well as dollar signs. There will soon be tens of thousands of satellites flying around in the sky and we can only guess their impending influence on modern life.
The aerospace realm is host to a highly innovative, competitive, and crowded group of technologically savvy dreamers and doers. And the information they mine can (and likely will) change the course of history. That elite group is not only competing against each other but also embattled with other elite players—hackers with nefarious intentions.
Reconnaissance, weaponization, threat assessments, vulnerabilities, defenses, tactics, techniques, attacks: all these words summon thoughts of war. And these cybersecurity terms are fitting: the aerospace industry, particularly, is engaged in a digital battle every single day, and few companies are prepared enough to protect their interests.
A Question Worth Billions of Dollars (Soon to be 1 Trillion)
In the olden days, it was believed that whoever could control the oceans could determine the fate of nations, but now it seems the skies are the cornerstone of security and success. Aerospace influences nearly every aspect of modern life, including such disparate areas as transport, travel, weather information, civilian, and even military communications, and war.
Connected aerospace, now intricately woven within private and commercial flight, national security, and communications allows for an abundance of actions, including for information to be swiftly transmitted between onboard systems and ground crews, for weather updates and flight data to be rapidly scrutinized by pilots, and for military aviators to communicate in real-time with commanders thousands of miles away.
Amazon’s Jeff Bezos, Starlink’s Elon Musk, Boeing, and countless other companies, not to mention a host of nations, are eyeing the skies as a mostly untapped resource, offering a wealth of information and a cornucopia of riches to whomever is innovative and fast enough to trailblaze to celestial opportunity.
Just as the world’s best and brightest look to space, another group of highly innovative and skilled individuals is finding weaknesses in cyberinfrastructure and creating code to exploit and harm. Their ability to wage calculated attacks from every corner of the world has left the aerospace industry on edge, including the U.S. Department of Defense, The Federal Aviation Administration, Homeland Security and Transportation, and the European Union Aviation Association.
Just as this generation’s space race takes off and global travel is rekindled, it has become evident that flight-critical systems and information can be exploited. Civilian and military operators, equipment and aircraft manufacturers, and industry associations recognize cybersecurity as one of the most notable issues facing aerospace.
Aerospace Now Essential to Military and National Security
Nothing speaks to the importance and implications of aerospace more than the recent move by the U.S. military to create the U.S. Space Force as the first new branch of the armed services in the past 73 years.
The newly minted branch is charged with “organizing, training, and equipping… to conduct space operations that enhance the way our joint and coalition forces fight.” The sky now holds infinitely more than in bygone days: stars of hydrogen and gas now share the skies with satellite constellations and over 5,000 active satellites now in orbit with an additional 30,000 satellites by 2032. These will be owned/controlled by many private and government entities.
Where the stars remain the things of myths and legends, their technological cousins amass one of the most valuable resources of our solar system: information.
Satellite Infrastructure Finds the Spotlight
Recent moves in modern warfare, namely the Russia-Ukraine conflict, have highlighted the ease of harnessing technology that was once cost-prohibitive for most nations. The commercialization of satellite-based space technologies has prompted a democratization of pivotal hardware. As a result, satellite-based artillery targeting—by Ukrainian forces harnessing SpaceX’s Starlink terminal—has allowed them to be lethally effective and mobile.
Military and government leaders are closely following events in Ukraine for reasons beyond politics.
“Russia’s war in Ukraine is the first war to ever showcase the importance of commercial space infrastructure,” US Space Force’s Space Operations (SpOC) Lieutenant General Stephen N. Whiting said at an event hosted by the Center for Strategic and International Studies, according to Cybernews.
Whiting noted that what they are witnessing with the conflict validates the swift movement of the commercial space and the ample opportunities this kind of innovation will bring to countries around the world, and to the U.S. Department of Defense.
Still, he also acknowledges the threats to aerospace have evolved way beyond anti-satellite weapons.
“We have to be cyber secure in everything we do because that’s a soft underbelly of these global space networks,” he said.
LinkedIn Job Offers and Espionage
Hackers are becoming increasingly creative in their attempts to disrupt the aerospace sector. Consider the 2019 espionage attempt using a sophisticated cyber campaign targeting aerospace and military organizations in Europe and the Middle East. The hackers had suspected ties to the Lazarus Group, an infamous hacking organization thought to work “on behalf of the North Korean government to fund the country’s illicit weapon and missile programs,” according to The Hacker News. The hacking operation harnessed fake LinkedIn profiles of HR managers, contacting specific aerospace experts with job offers. Those job offers included “confidential” PDF documents that outlined job and salary information. Once clicked, the backdoor was opened, giving hackers the ability to exfiltrate information under the radar.
Paul Rockwell, Head of Trust and Safety at LinkedIn said that his team actively seeks out signs of state-sponsored actions, and quickly works to neutralize bad actors to protect members, according to the article. The platform uses information shared by sources like government agencies and its own in-house experts to uncover and restrict fake accounts that have suspected malevolent purposes.
“They were highly targeted and relied on social engineering over LinkedIn and custom, multistage malware. To operate under the radar, the attackers frequently recompiled their malware, abused native Windows utilities, and impersonated legitimate software and companies,” researchers told The Hacker News.
Prevent to Protect
The uses and implications of aerospace have now ventured beyond what many could have even dreamed 50 or even 30 years ago. UAVs and satellite infrastructure can now tip the scales of war and proprietary aerospace technological advancements are invaluable to everyone with skin in the game. From nation-states to competitors, aerospace has a hackers’ target on its back—and heightened cybersecurity is the necessary armor.
