Hacking Satellites with $300 Worth of TV Gear

This student discovered that satellite security isn’t as stable as one may expect. So he decided to hack one.

Satellites are used for a wide variety of activities that most of us don't even recognize. From mobile phone networks to GPS capabilities, to a variety of IoT devices and operation of electrical grids, satellites are in control. Our global interconnectedness is deeply dependent on satellites — and they aren't as secure as we might expect them to be.

An exploitation of satellites’ weaknesses by hackers is not only possible, it’s probable. The US Air Force held a virtual version of the annual competition in 2020 at DEF CON, challenging hackers to reverse-engineer ground-based and on-orbit satellite system components to expose planted “flags” — or vulnerable software codes.

The idea is that the best defense can result in proactive offense. For researchers like James Pavur, a Rhodes Scholar and PhD candidate at Oxford University who focuses on satellite security, it's become his life's work to exploit and report potential vulnerabilities before hackers have the chance.

Follow Freethink.

[freethink]

How do you think we should improve cybersecurity?

[Kramitall]

I was hoping for the step-by-step process to hack a satellite.

[bahai]

He looks like the most disciplined and down-to-earth hacker

[colethesciencedude]

At 4:04 the dude can be seen writing python in vim, I noticed that line 18 is going to throw an 'IndentationError' because he appears to be trying to set the variable name target to a URL but prepended the line with 'def' as if it were a function.

[tjforentertainment]

Getting into an open air satellites that have no security and been built in 90s and 80s and served 20+ years is indeed a good job but remember there isn't much they can do to an old satellite in space.

[galadhlinn]

Gamers have exploited every game ever released within hours of release. That's all you need to know to understand the scope of this problem, and how to address it. Once content (code) is released to the public, a diverse, creative, curious and intently driven community will pounce on it and quickly discover ways to exploit it.

[LIBERTYRDEATH]

Very smart on the us Air Force to start this program. These “hackers” honestly are doing more to protect our country than most of our government officials ever could dream of doing . Thank you to everyone who is trying to improve our lives and make us more safe from the evil in this world.

[catserver]

Let's try not to have these come falling out of the sky.

[anuradharanasinghe]

Let me grab my satellite dish and laptop and hack into a satellite.

[INFULGE]

Some dude in my country (Kenya) did this in 2015 but here in Africa, Almost no one cares

[poindextertunes]

80s tv network satellites were wide open. I remember having a big dish in our back yard and equipment in the living room to tune the dish. my dad said he would watch football games from the raw feed with no commercials. Announcers would get into fights and threaten each other then a couple seconds later act like nothing happened “Aaand were back!” 😂

[mphaan]

Did this 30+ years ago when we took over a TV sat and ran some video. Then a guy in a suit from Luxembourg came up on the second channel and asked us to stop. We did. Great evening it was.
It was all analogue then and there was no security at all. All we did was build the transmitter for the upload freq. hooked it up to a dish and buy lots of beer.

[akshayv]

Kids hacking space satellites sounds cool.. But they are not any ordinary kids... I can't even fix my broken speakers

[CodyPumper]

This Coded series is great! I just wish they were several minutes longer and dug into the how!

[ahmadzaimhilmi]

These real life hackers would make excellent side characters in sci-fi movies. They could at least improvise lines and make them more believable.

[dabrad]

It's literally the watch dogs 2 scene

[afnDavid]

Sensationalism, hyper-drama, and much needless hype. You are trying to BS the viewer, not inform the viewer.

[Jigamanx]

This is nothing new. I’ve been intercepting weather data and imagery from us and Russian satellites for over a decade. Also doing this with consumer grade equipment is not as easy as the video makes it seem.

[bigdog]

He is NOT hacking anything - he is merely listening in on bounced transmissions. Most are encrypted... apparently some are not. Satellite security is quite stable and secure, I don't see any command and control affected here. Comm companies such as television networks and internet companies lease comm channels and are responsible for securing their own data. It is NOT up to the satellite owner to secure the individual comm channels, they simply receive and re-transmit (bounce) channel data.

[maggielonnie]

So 35 dollars taxes, can there be enough write offs to take all income taxes away.