Slashdot Mirror
Hackers Briefly Controlled US Government Satellites
Orome1 writes "Two U.S. satellites have been tampered with by hackers — possibly Chinese ones — in 2007 and 2008, claims a soon-to-be released report by the the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission. The two satellites, Landsat-7 and Terra AM-1, had been interfered with on four separate occasions, allowing the attackers to be in command of the satellites for two to over twelve minutes each time. Luckily, both of the satellites are used only for observing the Earth's climate and terrain, and the hackers never actually misused their control over them in any way."
the hackers never actually misused their control over them in any way
Can we agree that that hacking into a satellite is, by definition, misuse? That there is no proper use in this scenario?
The Daddy casts sleep on the Baby. The Baby resists!
hackers never actually misused their control over them in any way
So they are at an early testing stage. That is not overly reassuring.
the hackers never actually misused their control over them in any way
No... they were just trying out a proof-of-concept. Now they know how to take over the satelites though- the Chinese will have us in their grasp if we ever go to war... ... think about it- next time we consider going to war with China- they will take over our satellites and force us to watch Chinese Opera on our TV sets. ... our surrender will be so quick the French will call US surrender monkeys.
"That's the way to do it" - Punch
When GE built Nimbus (an early weather satellite) my grandfather was one of the engineers. He had security clearance high enough that it got him out of the draft and an armed guard was required when he went to the dentist (to shoot him should he start saying the wrong things under the gas). As he put it: "there's no way it's just looking at the clouds".
China is only consuming about half as much oil as the US - assuming oil/energy production and consumption play a major role in global warming. On the other hand, most of that consumption is being done to produce goods to be shipped to the US and Europe. Can you really blame someone for bleeding if you're the one that cut them?
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
Does that mean 12 and some change? If it was 13.5 minutes they would have said over 13?
Its like saying "My daughter took top 17 in the beauty pageant."... it means she got exactly 17th.
When China freely admits that it was them who took out the NE US power grid in 2003 just to see if they could (race condition, indeed), you have to wonder what they're doing that they don't tell us about. Several experts debunked that theory, but they're openly publishing papers like this: http://standeyo.com/NEWS/10_Sci_Tech/100323.CH.US.Power.Grid.pdf. I dunno. The Chinese think we're pretty laughable. I wouldn't put anything past them.
Baseless self confidence kills more people each year than bathtubs.
We did it, but just in a more polite manner.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-satellite_weapon#United_States
Don't know something? Look it up. Still don't know? Then ask.
I like how there is a subtle implication of Chinas involvement because they may have made them.
What... people really yearn for the good ole days of the Cold war or something?
That and our doublestandard that we have come to enjoy... China sucks, they take all our jobs, all our money, and are growing at a crazy pace, so they are evil.
But lets buy from them anyways... what?
As soon as the spy satellite images are good enough to resolve pubic hairs, the Chinese hackers will be all over them.
When that happens, nude sunbathing in the decadent West might just cripple the Chinese military effort... So do your duty, girls!
Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities. - Voltaire
WTF? it's not hard to start messing with a satellite C&C. IT's not like they are on the internet and the older ones have completely open interfaces.
All it takes is a PC with a sound card, custom software, and some ham radio gear and a nice big antenna array. if you can overwhelm the C&C signal from the main control point you can certainly start messing with it, non GEOSYNC birds typically are only communicated with when needed so it's easy to just contact it and send a command.
Hell if a hacker made a big enough antenna array they can screw with Mars rovers.
A little bit of education in how things you rely on work will turn your WTF! into a DUH!. mostly because most older satellites don't even require a username and password to connect and control it.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
That captain midnight guy just over powered HBO and was able to show his test card on HBO.
I work on the Landsat project.
Yes, Landsat 7 is controlled from Sioux Falls. But every downlink station (and we have over a dozen of them, including one in China) has the ability to communicate with the satellite to trigger a download of recorded imagery. I assume that's all the hackers did, which means all they would be able to do is wipe some imagery out of the archive. That's a hair-raising scenario for us but not significant for most people.
Only EROS has the ability to upload flight commands to the satellite. That's not to say that Svalbard couldn't, they just don't have the software and one would hope they don't have the documentation needed to form the command syntax. But if they had those things and a hacker took control of them, they could burn the satellite into the atmosphere or send it careening around in its orbital neighborhood. Chances of it hitting another satellite and breaking into a million disaster-causing pieces are minor but not zero.
This is a scary news story for us. I'm interested in seeing the full report when it's finally released.
Genocide Man -- Life is funny. Death is funnier. Mass murder can be hilarious.
that's all well and good, but so long as the majority don't care enough to also boycott, nothing will change.
and it's our bosses that decide it's cheaper to do it overseas... and they're correct in that decision.
i'm increasingly of the opinion that outsourcing to countries with cheap labour is actually capitalism's version of communism. it's raising the standard of living in the cheap countries and lowering it at home. when the standard has raised to the point that it's no longer competitive to outsource there, they find somewhere cheaper.
china is outsourcing a big chunk of it's clothing business to various African countries. you'll be surprised to find "made in China" may actually be a lie.
china wont be the world's factory for long - its skill set and wages are increasing very fast.
is this a bad thing or a good thing? certainly it's bad for us 1%'ers. it's most likely very bad for the global environment, but in the medium term at least it's good for the majority of people.
Being a former ELINT drone of many years I'd like to point out one aspect where you are quite wrong Lumpy - the C&C uplinks for near on every bird launched in the last 15 years are encrypted and use quite a few layers of security beyond that to authenticate command and control codes, particularly so for those owned and operated by the US. Not only that but pretty much all of them use entirely different line codes (for want of a better term) so it's not like there is a published standard methodology one can follow to 'own' one.
A little bit of education on the subject would certainly reveal that you can indeed beam a signal out to the Clark belt using cheap off the shelf kit these days, but there is no way in hell the average individual is going to pull this off without some serious know how and a lot of leg work to intercept and analyze the uplink.
I think you are confused between C&C and simply relaying a signal across a transponder, the latter having no security at all in just about every instance, the former being secure as hell in the majority.