ESA Nanosatellite Ethical Breach Shows Space Infrastructure Vulnerabie to Hacking

Ethical hackers successfully breached ESA's nanosatellite.

This was confirmed by the European Space Agency on Tuesday, Apr. 25. ESA said that the ethical security hacking was part of its CYSAT conference to see just how secure government-controlled satellites really are.

Thales, a French multinational tech firm that focuses on transportation, aerospace, defense, and security sectors, was the one that hacked ESA's nanosatellite OPS-SAT.

ESA Nanosatellite Has Been Ethically Breached!

According to Interesting Engineering's latest report, ESA invited cybersecurity researchers to participate in its Hack CYSAT challenge.

In this cybersecurity tournament, participants need to breach the OPS-SAT demonstration nanosatellite, which was launched in 2019.

Among the participating cybersecurity groups, Thales' team was the one who stood up to the top; breaching the demonstration nanosatellite.

"Thales is grateful to ESA and the CYSAT organizers for providing this unique opportunity to demonstrate the ability of our experts to identify vulnerabilities in a satellite system," said Thales Cyber Solutions VP Pierre-Yves Jolivet via Business Wire.

During the breach, Thales security researchers were able to access the satellite's global positioning system, altitude control system, and onboard camera.

Aside from this, they also took advantage of several vulnerabilities; allowing them to install malicious codes into the satellite's systems.

Ethical ESA Satellite Breach's Importance

Technically, ESA was still in control during Thales' security breach. This was necessary so that the nanosatellite's orbit would not be compromised.

Although the security breach is not severe, it still revealed the vulnerability of space infrastructure to cybercriminals.

Jolivet said that the latest cybersecurity exercise allowed them to raise awareness of the possible security flaws of satellites.

The information they acquired could help adapt existing and upcoming security solutions that can enhance the cybersecurity resilience of space infrastructure.

You can click this link to learn more about the importance of the latest ESA satellite breach.

In other stories, North Korean hackers are believed to be targeting Mac users with a new malware strain. Meanwhile, AT&T emails are also targeted by cybercriminals to steal cryptocurrencies.

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