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The hacking of Starlink terminals has begun

wired.com

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Re: The hacking of Starlink terminals has begun

#191

This WIRED article[1] references a release of tools and information about the research on GitHub[2] however it 404s. Hope that is not being censored. [1] https://www.wired.com/story/starlink-internet-dish-hack/ [2] https://github.com/KULeuven-COSIC/Starlink-FI

DEF CON goon here. Sometimes our presenters provide the link to a private GitHub repo to the press in advance of their presentation. After the presentation they make the repo public.

Re: The hacking of Starlink terminals has begun

#193
post #63

It shouldn't count as a vulnerability that you can get root of a device that you have physical possession of. If there's any real vulnerability here, it's that having root of your terminal gives you any extra privileges to the rest of the network.

Microsoft and Sony appear to have solved it for their gaming consoles. Satellite TV providers definitely solved it by now after learning from their mistakes. All in all there are plenty of devices in the world that are protected against physical access, so if Starlink tried doing that and failed, then that's definitely through an exploited vulnerability.

> Satellite TV providers definitely solved it by now after learning from their mistakes.

I don't know if they really "solved" it. I think the appetite for new hacks dwindled with broadband internet everywhere and streaming services.

Cat doesn't care for the mouse so much when there's kibble everywhere.

Re: The hacking of Starlink terminals has begun

#194

Remember 20+ years ago when people did this with cable modems?

Cable modems were easy: all you needed to do was JTAG them. I don't think any glitching was required.

The approach used for the Starlink terminal is more like what was done to reprogram satellite TV smart cards. Get a copy of the ROM, count the processor cycles and find the operation you don't want happens and mess with the voltage or frequency at that point to let you send in unsigned/unauthorized updates.

Re: The hacking of Starlink terminals has begun

#195
post #5

Relevant presentation on DEFCON Media server: https://media.defcon.org/DEF%20CON%2030/DEF%20CON%2030%20pre... https://media.defcon.org/DEF%20CON%2030/DEF%20CON%2030%20pre...

Other relevant links from the presentation are https://exploitee.rs/index.php/Exploitee.rs_Low_Voltage_e-MM... (recommended firmware extraction hardware) https://www.esat.kuleuven.be/cosic/blog/dumping-and-extracti... (firmware extraction writeup) https://rtfm.newae.com/ (glitching and side channel analysis hardware) and https://github.com/newaetech/chipwhisperer (associated open source toolchain)

Re: The hacking of Starlink terminals has begun

#196
post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Microsoft and Sony appear to have solved it for their gaming consoles. Satellite TV providers definitely solved it by now after learning from their mistakes. All in all there are plenty of devices in the world that are protected against physical access, so if Starlink tried doing that and failed, then that's definitely through an exploited vulnerability.

> Satellite TV providers definitely solved it by now after learning from their mistakes. I don't know if they really "solved" it. I think the appetite for new hacks dwindled with broadband internet everywhere and streaming services. Cat doesn't care for the mouse so much when there's kibble everywhere.

Using this table for reference and the fact that proper smartcards like banking cards and SIM cards are secure I'm pretty confident calling modern CA systems secure too. If some providers don't have one of those, then it's probably because it's not worth it for them to switch or upgrade.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conditional_access#Digital_sys...

EDIT: More than that, some recent ones even solved so called 'card sharing' which is basically using a legitimate card to transmit control words over network to many users.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Card_sharing

Re: The hacking of Starlink terminals has begun

#197

Certainly it did not cost $25 to develop the modchip. If you put in the labor and software related cost it's not $25.

I'm confused what you're even arguing against.

The article specifically uses the phrasing "uses off-the-shelf parts that cost around $25". It doesn't say anything about the cost to develop, it doesn't say anything even slightly misleading or ambiguous about this.

Like, what should the article have done instead? How could it possibly be clearer and more explicit about what $25 referred to here?

Re: The hacking of Starlink terminals has begun

#198
post #196

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Satellite TV providers definitely solved it by now after learning from their mistakes. I don't know if they really "solved" it. I think the appetite for new hacks dwindled with broadband internet everywhere and streaming services. Cat doesn't care for the mouse so much when there's kibble everywhere.

Using this table for reference and the fact that proper smartcards like banking cards and SIM cards are secure I'm pretty confident calling modern CA systems secure too. If some providers don't have one of those, then it's probably because it's not worth it for them to switch or upgrade. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conditional_access#Digital_sys... EDIT: More than that, some recent ones even solved so called 'card…

I'm not saying the modern CAMs have been compromised, just saying the profit incentive has dwindled. For a while, entirely non-OEM receivers were being used with key distribution over the internet. But at that point, just get a black market IPTV subscription. Compromising the cards has a fraction of the value it used to, and there's more 'locked down' targets in other devices to focus one's skills at.

Re: The hacking of Starlink terminals has begun

#199

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Russia does not have the capability of destroying Starlink because the amount of upmass required to destroy them is larger then what the Russians can actually do. SpaceX replacement rate would be higher then Russia destroy rate.

Except Russia already proved they can shoot satellites out of space as they did almost a year ago with their Nudol ASAT weapon test: https://archive.ph/1tdHl

Excellent. Now repeat that feat 2500 times to destroy all existing Starlink satellites, and keep doing it 1300 times each year to destroy all the new Starlink satellites that are being launched.

Assuming of course that SpaceX will not increase its launch cadence, and that this act of war will not provoke a response that stops is. The concept is laughable. It is intractable at every level of execution.

Re: The hacking of Starlink terminals has begun

#200

This WIRED article[1] references a release of tools and information about the research on GitHub[2] however it 404s. Hope that is not being censored. [1] https://www.wired.com/story/starlink-internet-dish-hack/ [2] https://github.com/KULeuven-COSIC/Starlink-FI

archive.org only ever captured 404s for that page. i wonder if it was a typo in the article. does Starlink use TI’s SimpleLink? because there’s a very similarly-named repo doing similar fault injection here: https://github.com/KULeuven-COSIC/SimpleLink-FI

Wondered that too but the presentation slides make no mention of anything related to SimpleLink. Than again there could be more under the hood than just what the slides themselves describe. Close but probably not a match.
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