Cyber attacks on satellites could spark global catastrophe, experts warn
Cyber attacks on satellites could spark global
catastrophe, experts warn
The world is unprepared for how vulnerable it is to
attack from the skies, argues a major new paper from Chatham House
By Andrew Griffin September 22, 2016
The world is dangerously unprepared for a global disaster
sparked by cyber attacks on space infrastructure, experts have warned.
Authorities are not doing nearly enough to stop space
assets being hacked and used maliciously, according to a warning from security
experts. The consequences of such a hack could be disastrous – anything from damage
to trade and financial services to terrorists taking over strategic weapons.
Much of the world’s infrastructure is dependent on space
machinery – almost every important business or technology on the ground is
powered by space assets. And while governments have done a great deal in
looking to secure those technologies on Earth, they could easily be threatened
from space.
Those weaknesses could be exploited by people and groups
including states, criminal syndicates, terrorists and hackers to create a
potential global catastrophe on Earth, according to a new report from Chatham
House.
The think tank suggested that authorities should commit
to a “radical review” of cyber security in space. There’s currently no global
organisation looking at the issue and the situation may advance so quickly that
governments soon won’t be able to do anything about it, argued Dr Patricia Lewis,
director of the international security department at Chatham House, and her
co-author David Livingstone, an associate fellow at the institute.
That is because space is quickly becoming somewhere that
isn’t dominated just by a few privileged countries. Instead, it is becoming a
domain “ruled by market forces”, and this is likely to intensify in future.
As such, the authors fear that isolated governments could
do little about any specific cyber threat, and that countries must work
together to respond to them.
That shouldn’t be done by regulation, which can tend to
be slow, the authors said. Instead the world should develop a flexible new
cyber security regime that can allow space companies to work together across
the world and stop attacks on infrastructure.
The authors said that they hoped the required changes
would be made by the space industry itself.
“The space industry is renowned as a forward-thinking,
market-leading community and it needs to address cyber security urgently,” said
Mr Livingstone. “What we need is an international community of the willing that
would be tasked with developing industry-led standards in order to develop pace
and agility in response to the growing cyber threat in space.”
Patricia Lewis said that some of that work was already
being done, with space agencies looking seriously at advanced protections for
space infrastructure.
“The fact that countries such as China are prepared to
try completely new approaches such as quantum entanglement, and the European
Galileo space navigational network has introduced new security measures, shows
the capacity and determination of the space industry to counter the cyber
security challenges all of our countries face,” she said.
Comments
Post a Comment