Special Issue Article, Jeet Vol: 9 Issue: 3

Space communications and cyber security: Threats, risks and solutions

Space communication is becoming a vital part of national and international infrastructures. Countries are increasingly dependent on global satellite capabilities for national and international infrastructures, which include systems governing the navigation of aircraft and ships, military decision-support systems, financial transactions, and communications through the internet. Cyber security threats to space communications are a relatively new phenomenon, with increasing connections to the forefront of concern for the critical systems due to the vulnerabilities that such threats may exploit and negatively impact. In fact, such vulnerabilities may affect military command systems, launch systems, communications, telemetry, tracking & command, and mission completion. More importantly, space infrastructures are often used as backup solutions to traditional communication mechanism: consequently, they are not secured by design. This talk addresses these new interfaces between space communications and the cyberspace. It provides examples of malicious, both kinetic and cyber-enabled, events that interleave with cybersecurity risks. New challenges regarding the nature of spatial data, including the need for computational efficiency, survivability, and fault-tolerance are emphasized. The impediment of emerging technologies such as artificial intelligence (AI) and the internet of things (IoT) are considered as a force multiplier for the cyber risks that stem from space communications. Moreover, since space infrastructures are commonly used for intelligence and reconnaissance purposes, specific security requirements and solutions. The talk concludes by prospecting the establishment of a framework to implement efficient and effective remedies to the cyber threats connected to space communications.

Keywords: Wireless Communication, Networking, Space communication