Russia’s Victory Day beamed in Ukraine: Can satellites be hacked and could it threaten national security?

Back in May, when Russia was celebrating its Victory Day, regular TV programming in Ukraine was interrupted by parade footage after Kremlin-backed hackers hijacked an orbiting satellite that provides television service to Ukraine.

Ukrainian viewers were forced to watch waves of tanks, soldiers and weaponry, in a message of intimidation as Moscow expanded the scope of the war from land, air and sea to the reaches of outer space.

Disabling a satellite could deal a devastating blow without one bullet, and it can be done by targeting the satellite’s security software or disrupting its ability to send or receive signals from Earth.

“If you can impede a satellite’s ability to communicate, you can cause a significant disruption,” said Tom Pace, CEO of NetRise, a cybersecurity firm focused on protecting supply chains.

“Think about GPS,” said Pace, who served in the Marines before working on cyber issues at the Department of Energy. “Imagine if a population lost that and the confusion it would cause.”

How satellites could become targets in war

The space is currently accommodating over 12,000 satellites that orbit the planet to not just broadcast communications but also serve an important role in military operations, navigation systems like GPS, intelligence gathering and economic supply chains.

The indispensable need for satellites in our day-to-day lives has made them a national security vulnerability and a target for war-mongering, or deliver a psychological blow like the hackers supporting Russia did when they hijacked television signals in Ukraine.

How have they become targets in the Ukraine war?

Hackers often target the weakest point in the software or hardware that supports a satellite or manages its communication with Earth. Even if the satellite itself is well-protected, outdated software can leave it vulnerable to attack.

As Russian forces invaded Ukraine in 2022, someone targeted Viasat, the US-based satellite company used by Ukraine’s government and military. The hack, which Kyiv blamed on Moscow, used malware to infect tens of thousands of modems, creating an outage affecting wide swaths of Europe.

National security officials say Russia is developing a nuclear, space-based weapon designed to take out virtually every satellite in low-Earth orbit at once. The weapon would combine a physical attack that would ripple outward, destroying more satellites, while the nuclear component would be used to fry their electronics.

With inputs from AP