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Hacking a Satellite is Surprisingly Easy (theoutline.com)
Caroline Haskins, writing for The Outline: Hundreds of multi-ton liabilities -- soaring faster than the speed of sound, miles above the surface of the earth -- are operating on Windows-95. They're satellites, responsible for everything from GPS positioning, to taking weather measurements, to carrying cell signals, to providing television and internet. For the countries that own these satellites, they're invaluable resources. Even though they're old, it's more expensive to take satellites down than it is to just leave them up. So they stay up. Unfortunately, these outdated systems makes old satellites prime targets for cyber attacks. [...]
A malicious actor could fake their IP address, which gives information about a user's computer and its location. This person could then get access to the satellite's computer system, and manipulate where the satellite goes or what it does. Alternatively, an actor could jam the satellite's radio transmissions with earth, essentially disabling it. The cost of such an attack could be huge. If a satellite doesn't work, life-saving GPS or online information could be withheld to people on earth when they need it most. What's worse, if part of a satellite -- or an entire satellite -- is knocked out of its orbit from an attack, the debris could create a domino effect and cause extreme damage to other satellites.
A malicious actor could fake their IP address, which gives information about a user's computer and its location. This person could then get access to the satellite's computer system, and manipulate where the satellite goes or what it does. Alternatively, an actor could jam the satellite's radio transmissions with earth, essentially disabling it. The cost of such an attack could be huge. If a satellite doesn't work, life-saving GPS or online information could be withheld to people on earth when they need it most. What's worse, if part of a satellite -- or an entire satellite -- is knocked out of its orbit from an attack, the debris could create a domino effect and cause extreme damage to other satellites.
I'd think a satellite would want some type of RTOS for it's main system. I used WinCE some 15-20 years ago and it sucked ass, but I'd rather use it to control a satellite than I would Win95 (or a modern Linux for that matter).
Windows 95 is a consumer desktop OS? Does the author means that the control software for the satellites runs on Win 95?
I'd imagine that the satellites themselves would use a real-time or server OS i.e. QNX, NT, or a Unixoid OS. Running a desktop OS on hardware with no direct display would be stupid, and satellite engineers aren't likely to be stupid.
NT I Could See
Back in the day, NT was actually a pretty good OS, and used in a number of mission critical applications. (Including some I worked on.)
But... 95? Really?
That was certainly not MILSPEC approved for that sort of thing. And NASA had even tighter requirements and a higher specification bar.
I really suspect that the author has their facts a bit scrambled.
Check your premises.
As some are having their BSOD
Sent as ripples into the electromagnetic field. No single photon has been harmed in the process.
Although even there I would expect most of them to be running some sort of unix.
As far as satellite OSes go, I would expect something better than linux or embedded OSes. It needs to be a nuclear/medical grade RTOS with failover capabilities on every codepath and piece of hardware. Otherwise what is the point when a stray bit of cosmic radiation flips or damages something important?
I'd be surprised if modern satellites don't have some sort of protection built into them after the legendary HBO Satellite hack that resulted in the words "HBO Sucks" displayed across North America. Jamming is always a possibility with a high powered transmitter although doing so would be the equivalent of putting a giant bulls-eye on your back since it's hard to hide a massive signal. There's also a huge question of why as well. Some of these hacks require some not so trivial equipment so it's sort of hard to see someone spending a small fortune just to bring down a service which many folks require just for laughs.
There has never been a microsoft flight certified any thing.
And no intel stuff that i know of.
those birds were designed in the 60s for GPS and more than likely use some version of the IBM AGC for the apollo missions.
Linux modi 2.6.26-2-parisc
What do you want to bet that "Caroline Haskins, writing for The Outline" has no idea what hacking is.
What a terrible article, and by article, I mean Mail Chimp advertisement.
Just remember that Satellites are embedded systems from Hell.
Many moons ago, I had to work on a MSDOS system because we needed something with a very small foot print - and we rolled our own when it came to network connectivity (Ah yes, using a MAC address as the machine's address! Fun times!!) [Linux was shit back then, btw].
And today's OSes are such bloatware. WTF?! I know they want to give the user an experience and they got to support a lot of hardware, but even then, really?! My Android phone ran out of space with 8 gigs - and that's was after removing ALL my apps. Yes, Android and the Google and facebook shit that I can't remove without cracking the phone (not gonna happen) requires 8 Gigs - and facebook's app has a sneaky way of coming back alive after I force quite the thing (explain THAT Fuckerberg!)
My point (tl;dr) is that "old" tech is sometimes the best solution to one's problem.
I read the article and while it makes the claim about Win95, it doesn't go into detail about it or support it with facts. I find that claim somewhat incredulous as most satellites would never use a GUI based desktop OS. Maybe some control systems on the ground use Win95 and have ever been updated.
I would agree with the basic premise that many satellites especially older ones are not hardened against cyber attacks.
Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
Literally... Chicken little has confirmed it!
Um... Yea, a lot of stuff is POSSIBLE, but the question really is about how practical it is. What's the actual level of risk? Pretty low.
These things are expensive. Older satellites might be vulnerable to exploits launched from the Web, but I've got to believe that such "over the web" control systems are quite well protected and monitored. Disrupting over the AIR (I.E. RF links) are going to require specialized equipment and some specialized knowledge about what you are doing (not all satellites use the same control uplink frequencies), and actually taking CONTROL is like to require insider knowledge of expected modulation techniques, telemetry formats, encryption keys and a lot of other things.
There are a lot of places that have the uplink equipment, though it's not that long of a list and most of that equipment is already being used for commercial applications. An uplink setup is prohibitively expensive for an individual to build and commercial companies that own them like to keep track of when they are used. You could possibly arrange to use one by stealing a mobile unit or breaking into one and using it, but you will get discovered pretty quick.
All this to say, Disruption is easy, so doing a denial of service attack is pretty high risk, you just need to access the right equipment. DOS attacks (and uplink mistakes) happen all the time now. Taking control? Not very likely, very low risk. State actors might have the resources, but apart from that, it's not going to be worth the effort and costs.
"File to fit, pound to insert, paint to match" - Aircraft Maintenance 101
The actual command/control of the spacecraft themselves is protected by reasonably heavy Cryptography. When a Long March rocket failed in China while launching Intelsat 708, Intelsat failed to recover the cryptographic equipment from the wreckage, despite significant risks taken by their crew.
...si hoc legere nimium eruditionis habes...
There's noo way some satellite up there is actually running Windows 95 for anything on the the satellite hardware itself. I'm not believing that.
But I will believe there might be ground control workstations running Windows 95 for some function due to having custom software developed on it or a hardware device/card that cannot be moved to a newer version of Windows.
I know of all kinds of customer sites with Win95 workstations still in use. These are for specialized applications like manufacturing machine control or scientific test tools. They either keep them completely off the network and block all USB ports, etc, OR they use a very discrete localized network.
Security through obscurity is no security at all, and no amount of smugness in a retarded comment will fix that.
Releasing the know how does multiple services. First, it lets independent operators or consumers of said tech determine if the attack vector works on their systems. Second, it encourages the producers / manufacturers to implement fixes. They will be less inclined to spend the resources correcting the issues if they feel the fact that the attack isn't in the wild. Third, it prevents bas actors from capitalizing on an attack since the issue would be resolved faster. Fourth, it allows consumers to implement mitigation strategies and test them, while a solution is being formulated.
Sounds like an arsonist's wet dream.
Sad consequence of the Get It Up / Get It Out / Get It Sold NOW mentality, with no foresight about security.
Modern satellites may be hardened against modern cyber attacks but the ones in orbit for decades might not be.
Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
And here I thought forks were just a wonderful modern invention.
damaged by dogma
I browsed the article, and there are no actual facts to support the claim that hacking a satelite is surprisingly easy. None.
The claim that they run Windows 95 is not supported at all. A quick google revealed that most of the older satelites did not have a traditional operating system at all.
The whole article looks mostlly like clickbait, written by somebody with little knowledge of computers and even less about satelites.
The Intelsat 708 launch failure occurred in 1996. Typical lifespan for a geostationary satellite is approximately 15 years, before they're moved to a graveyard orbit and rendered inert.
For the most part, the TT&C (Tracking Telemetry and Control) codes for managing the spacecraft themselves has always been a closely guarded secret, and one fo the things that is subject to ITAR controls, due to the cryptography involved.
That said, there have been at least one incident where sabotage of the satellite was suspected, but this occurred during a rather bitter labour dispute between the satellite operator and their tracking and monitoring staff.
...si hoc legere nimium eruditionis habes...
I noticed that too but my own favourite was "soaring faster than the speed of sound" which for these satellites, is zero because they are in space. If there was enough atmosphere to transmit sound there would be a huge atmospheric drag.
"If a satellite doesn't work, life-saving GPS or online information could be withheld to people on earth when they need it most."
If our GPS satellites are that easily hacked (to say nothing of them running on Win95 - seriously?) then we'd deserve that.
To say which: no, I think a big chunk of the OP is a) wrong, b) getting into histrionics over what they IMAGINE might happen in their wildest dreams.
-Styopa
Of course, youâ(TM)re right. The satellites we are talking of are not running on x86, and are certainly not using Windows 95. In fact, on a lot of them, there isnâ(TM)t any ÂÂoperating systemÂÂ layer. And on the others, youâ(TM)re more likely to find an RTOS running on PPC or SPARC. As you said, the article writer probably mistook the operating systems running on the ground support equipement and command/control stations rather than the satellite itself. Nevertheless, if the command/control station can be hacked, it still raises security related questions...
"It looks like you are trying to orbit a planet; would you like some help?"
Table-ized A.I.
Maybe someone googled for "what operating system runs on old satellites" and didn't realize that the Satellite made by Toshiba is a laptop, not an actual Earth orbiting device.
I, too, do not believe that any satellite is running Windows 95. To say the least, Win95 has not been optimized for power efficiency or running on resource-poor radiation hardened microprocessors, memory and support chips. Considering the Win95 is just a gui on top of MSDOS, running just MSDOS would make far more sense than Win95. Who would be using a mouse and looking at the screen on a satellite? Would they be using PCAnywhere on a space dial-up modem link?
Furthermore, Windows 95 has a timer wraparound bug that causes a crash every 49.7 days, and that bug wasn't found until the early 2000's, so anyone that used Win95 as a space OS has a dead satellite.
Win95 was used on the ground. Here's some info from people who were involved in all that back then.
https://www.quora.com/Why-do-t...
Also, I'm not seeing any evidence in the article that "hacking a satellite is surprisingly easy".
Also TT&C of spacecraft is the only time you can use encryption on amateur radio.
https://www.law.cornell.edu/cf...
-- I have a private email server in my basement.
So they are going to do a Windows Update in Orbit??
You just made the AC's point.
When Fascism comes to America, it will call itself Anti-Fascism, and tell you to give up your guns.
Fourth, it allows consumers to implement mitigation strategies and test them, while a solution is being formulated.
What is your proposed "mitigation strategy" to having a multi-ton, faster than sound communication satellite smashed onto the top of your head?
Is it "security by obscurity" when someone creates hypothetical methods of hacking into a system that they have zero knowledge about, and then announces how insecure those systems are?
So the idea of uploading a virus to the satellite as the climax of a movie came from a real life satellite operator! Is that true?
sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
Seconded. Other than a mention Windows 95 in the opening paragraph (dare I say, it's click bait?), the story has nothing to do with Windows at all. It is primarily about the possibility and consequences of cyber attacks against satellites.
GOODEVENING HBO
FROM CAPTAIN MIDNIGHT
$12.95/MONTH ?
NO WAY !
[SHOWTIME/MOVIE CHANNEL BEWARE!]
Satellite control systems are meant to be able to reload the entire program memory of the satellite, bypassing any ROM that might be in the satellite if necessary, because things tend to fail under radiation. This means relatively small-scale logic to load ROM from an all-hardware modem and reset the CPU. This is done using a radio command with relatively simple encryption - cubesats often use EOR with a constant. The processors are silicon-on-insulator (because it is resistant to radiation-induced latch-up) and are not the modern ones you're used to. They don't run IP at this level.
Bruce Perens.
There is no fucking way that a satellite is running win95. None. Didn't happen. Either the writer is an idiot, got trolled, or both. Nobody, and I repeat NOBODY is going to run a power hungry desktop OS on a power starved sat. Period.
And yes, we do know what to do if one gets hacked. We find the source of the transmission, and drop a JDAM on it. Problem solved, problem staying solved. These things aren't connected to the internet in some way where you just plug in an IP and hack the thing.
Trash headline, and someone should be ashamed and never post again.
"A malicious actor could fake their IP address, which gives information about a user's computer and its location."
Nope. Not even remotely accurate.
"A plan fiendishly clever in its intricacies"- Homer Simpson
The mitigation strategy is for the satellite operator, not the general public.
If you want one.... go underground?
Also, it's not security through obscurity when someone makes a hypothetical attack vector. I was referencing the argument that we should not share security vulnerabilities.... reread the thread, dumbass.
I can't imagine in my wildest shitty dreams that any satellite is running Windows 95.
One could argue that satellite are running operating systems that were developed in the same era as W95.
So exactly what radiation hardened CPU would be running W95?
Satellites are running realtime hardened operating systems (such as vxworks or rodos) that have very well defined modes of operation. Literally nothing I said in that last sentence would apply to windows 95.
Now granted, could some of these operating systems harbor vulnerabilities? Sure. Could these vulnerabilities be exploited to cause mayhem? Sure.
Yes Francis, the world has gone crazy.
The mitigation strategy is for the satellite operator, not the general public.
So there is no mitigation strategy for the consumers of satellite TV to deal with this alleged horrific security vulnerability. That's kind of the point. Someone else already pointed out the questionable idea of upgrading the OS for a satellite in orbit, I was just pointing to a different absurdity.
Also, it's not security through obscurity when someone makes a hypothetical attack vector.
No, in this case it is called "science fiction". Suspend your disbelief when reading this fictional account of how satellites are built and run and see how horrible the results could be! Be afraid! Be very, very afraid!
I was referencing the argument that we should not share security vulnerabilities....
Yes, I know. One reason you gave is because the consumer could create a mitigation strategy if they know about vulnerabilities. In this case, "go underground" isn't a viable strategy, but then, it is a completely fictional vulnerability to start with.
Hey, if satellites used consumer grade routers of a certain vintage and variety, they could be powned and told to crash into your house because you chased your next door neighbor's dog out of your backyard. He's a HAM! He's got ANTENNAS! He can point them at SATELLITES! He can TRANSMIT stuff you don' t understand! Are you worried? Will you stop chasing your neighbor's dog out of your backyard? Will you "go underground" to avoid the problem?
reread the thread, dumbass.
You needed to stoop to personal insult, it appears. Too bad.
A malicious actor could fake their IP address, which gives information about a user's computer and its location.
What? IP Spoofing is something new to be afraid of, and somehow opens mystical doors into satellite control systems? No. I can set my computer's IP address to the same IP address as the workstation controlling a satellite, but that doesn't in any way afford me the ability to tap into the control stream for sattelites.
This person could then get access to the satellite's computer system, and manipulate where the satellite goes or what it does.
How? It doesn't just "happen", it's not like when the robbers go into a bathroom with a palmtop computer and a cord with two alligator clips and by carefully peel back the outer cover on CCTV cameras and can "take over" the CCTV surveillance system.
Alternatively, an actor could jam the satellite's radio transmissions with earth, essentially disabling it. The cost of such an attack could be huge.
Again, HOW? The ground control station is a non-trivial facility, you can't just hack one together with an SDR dongle and a raspberry pi.
This is a staggeringly simplistic view of satellite control systems - just slightly more sophisticated than the business plan of The Underpants Gnomes from Southpark:
Ken
No, no it isn't, any you have proven you have No Earthly Idea what you are talking about, put your pencil down and go home.
Ken
Re "but the ones in orbit for decades might not be."
Its the way the NSA thought.
It was better to collect data in space for the NSA and have the speed of cheaper communications for the USA.
Why risk communications in space getting crypto that could fail or not work over many years stuck in every sat?
Thats a lot of extra work for the communications network in space. Encrypt end to end and pass the secure data from via a low cost communications sat network.
That allowed the US a place many new advanced sats that did not need secure and complex crypto tested in each sat. A saving in extra complexity and support at the time. The US could put that savings to other systems in the sat design and trust in crypto over the total network not just per sat.
The US also feared staff would sell, walk out with a set crypto design per sat and that would make all crypto in that sat network space junk.
Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"
Have gnu, will travel.
All the ones I looked at used some form of encryption (I saw a lot of One Time Pad ones) for their control channels. I don't think someone's going to drop $100M on getting a satellite to orbit without putting decent security on it.
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
And you might want to read a dictionary before you feel that you should correct someone on their use of a word.
Definition of incredulous
1 : unwilling to admit or accept what is offered as true : not credulous : skeptical
2 : incredible
3 : expressing incredulity an incredulous stare
Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
These have embedded systems in them, not a general-purpose operating system such as Windows 95 or any other OTS OS. Each satellite has a custom built and configured embedded system. While it may have a foundation of an older system, it is unique. This is why individuals need to educate themselves by supplementing their reading with a few books from experts in their field. People that built these things! As one individual pointed out, Win9x came out well after many of the GPS satellites were launched. Scarry enough as this may be - ATMs used to run OTS Windows 9x. They have since all wised up.... and again, use a customized system.
Bullshit. This bug was known in the 1990's.
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I think they talk of ground segment systems.
Btw. the biggest actual man-made satellite runs on Linux :
https://training.linuxfoundati...
aaaaaaa
IP address spoofing to take over satellites! It's easy! Windows 95! *facepalm*
Windows 95, suuuuuuure .....
That's interesting. I would like to see some evidence.
How would you expect to see evidence? Unfortunately, things from the 90's are primarily aged off the internet. I mean, I doubt a major paper (the only things I can think of still stretching back that far) covered it.
Your ad here. Ask me how!
Found it! Q216641
On the wayback machine:
http://support.microsoft.com/s...
It's from May 1999, but I think the bug was found in February.
That does indeed count as being in the 1990's. I suppose it didn't get into popular press until after y2k because, well y2k.
I used to do back-end Win95 support for Microsoft (among other things), but had quit before 1999, so that's my excuse for thinking it came out after y2k.
Article makes no sense. Satellite resources are too constrained to be using something as bloated as Win95 OS. Possibly some ground stations are using win95 but certainly not for anything mission critical. And anything that involves jamming up or moving a incredibly expensive item like a satellite is mission critical. So, fake news, uneducated reporter, whatever; this is not a real thing.
"Consensus" in science is _always_ a political construct.
Ah! Thanks for seeking it out. And no worries- ,y timelines from ~20 years ago are also fuzzy.
I wanted build off what you said and try to explain why I was so sure it was in the '90's, but I cannot even recall that!
Your ad here. Ask me how!