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The hacking of Starlink terminals has begun

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Re: The hacking of Starlink terminals has begun

#211

Post by sneak »

yarg wrote: post #202
gtvwill wrote: post #188

Eh low threat hack. Requires physical access to dish and installs piece of easily identifiable hardware. Tbh give unfettered access to most hardware and you can hack it.

The terminal is used to contact the constellation as well as Starlink's backend servers. If the remote machines have the assumption of trustworthy terminals baked in, then this isn't a low threat hack.

> If the remote machines have the assumption of trustworthy terminals baked in,

Given the general competence level of the engineering at SpaceX, I would not put any money on this being true.

Maybe if the system were designed by Sony...

Re: The hacking of Starlink terminals has begun

#212

Post by sneak »

roastedpeacock wrote: post #201
no-dr-onboard wrote: post #191

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

:-) Might be better to encourage placeholder repository to avoid concerns from the public such as this but as long as the presenter ultimately controls the namespace it is not really at issue.

Microsoft and the US military ultimately controls the namespace on GitHub.com.

Re: The hacking of Starlink terminals has begun

#214

Post by GekkePrutser »

bitcoinmoney wrote: post #213

Can you triangulate satellite locations with this attack? If yes one could shoot down starlink satellites one by one.

Their position is not a secret. They're tracked by NORAD and their tracking parameters are public. You can track them with any satellite tracker app. The tracking elements are here: https://celestrak.org/NORAD/elements/gp.php?GROUP=starlink&F...

This info is enough to calculate their exact position and is constantly updated as their orbits change due to degradation or powered movements.

But accurately hitting an object at 400km altitude moving at 10km/s is outside the capability of all but corporate and state actors and starlink is not great target because their sats are so small and there's so many of them.

It would cost a fortune in missiles just to make a dent in the constellation.

Re: The hacking of Starlink terminals has begun

#215

Post by yarg »

sneak wrote: post #211
yarg wrote: post #202

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The terminal is used to contact the constellation as well as Starlink's backend servers. If the remote machines have the assumption of trustworthy terminals baked in, then this isn't a low threat hack.

> If the remote machines have the assumption of trustworthy terminals baked in, Given the general competence level of the engineering at SpaceX, I would not put any money on this being true. Maybe if the system were designed by Sony...

I know it's somewhat unlikely, but I was replying to someone who couldn't even see the potential value of a hacked terminal as the entry point to an attack chain.

Re: The hacking of Starlink terminals has begun

#216

Post by LtWorf »

marvin wrote: post #199
bogomipz wrote: post #189

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Starlink: the final bullet that killed astronomy from earth and soon probably also space travel.

Re: The hacking of Starlink terminals has begun

#217

Post by LightG »

marvin wrote: post #199
bogomipz wrote: post #189

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Until it happens...

These possibilities are not at the behest of your logic but at the will of a small number of people far away.

Re: The hacking of Starlink terminals has begun

#218

Post by lostsock »

yarg wrote: post #202
gtvwill wrote: post #188

Eh low threat hack. Requires physical access to dish and installs piece of easily identifiable hardware. Tbh give unfettered access to most hardware and you can hack it.

The terminal is used to contact the constellation as well as Starlink's backend servers. If the remote machines have the assumption of trustworthy terminals baked in, then this isn't a low threat hack.

No need to speculate:

"We will happily ship a Starlink kit to any customer that purchases one. With Starlink kits all over the world, we don't have much control over what users do to them. History shows us that it's hard (and maybe impossible) to make devices completely resilient to persistent attackers with unrestricted physical access – the attacker just has too much power when they have infinite time to modify the hardware. In the limit they could always just build their own user device from scratch, though we know from experience that it's pretty hard to do so. Ultimately, the only way for us to build a secure system is to assume that attackers will eventually get into the Starlink kit, and add additional layers of defense-in-depth to protect our network and the other users within it. Other parts of the Starlink network, like satellites, might be more difficult for a consumer to get their hands on, but similarly are built with layers of defense. To provide these additional layers of protection, there are a number of security properties that we believe are important both in the Starlink kit and in the rest of the system"

From https://api.starlink.com/public-files/StarlinkWelcomesSecuri...

Re: The hacking of Starlink terminals has begun

#219

Post by sebastialonso »

yarg wrote: post #215
sneak wrote: post #211

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If the remote machines have the assumption of trustworthy terminals baked in, Given the general competence level of the engineering at SpaceX, I would not put any money on this being true. Maybe if the system were designed by Sony...

I know it's somewhat unlikely, but I was replying to someone who couldn't even see the potential value of a hacked terminal as the entry point to an attack chain.

You are completely right about the potential magnitude of the hack, but my first approach was purely as an individual consumer, this doesn't affect me. Seeing this as an engineer...yikes

Re: The hacking of Starlink terminals has begun

#220

Post by Aeolun »

rockemsockem wrote: post #145
upupandup wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

Uh, why though? This demonstrates that a determined attacker can get access to the software running on their own personal terminal. That's like a determined attacker being able to get access to their own personal router. It sounds like strictly a good thing and with how many satellite internet companies are coming online we will hopefully see some common hardware devices that users have full access to along with some…

Like jailbreaking your iPhone
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