Certainly it did not cost $25 to develop the modchip. If you put in the labor and software related cost it's not $25.
The hacking of Starlink terminals has begun
51–60 of 267 posts
Re: The hacking of Starlink terminals has begun
#52Earlier quoted context omitted.
There's 2700 satellites currently deployed, so even at 1 per satellite it's still in the "thousands".
Hmm... When I read "hundreds of thousands" I assume more than 100,000. Is that incorrect understanding of English?
I think 200 would be technically correct but most people would assume 300+ for 'hundreds'.
Re: The hacking of Starlink terminals has begun
#53The response from Starlink[0] was pretty amazing. I love this quote: "we want to congratulate Lennert Wouters on his security research into the Starlink user terminal – his findings are likely why you're reading this, and help us create the best product possible." A lot better than companies that would try to prosecute him.. [0]: https://api.starlink.com/public-files/StarlinkWelcomesSecuri...
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Re: The hacking of Starlink terminals has begun
#54Great response by SpaceX: https://api.starlink.com/public-files/StarlinkWelcomesSecuri... “Bring on the bugs”. This is how you properly engage the security community. In times where journalists are taken to court for looking at a webpage’s HTML source it’s really great seeing a company that “gets it”. Kudos.
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Re: The hacking of Starlink terminals has begun
#55The response from Starlink[0] was pretty amazing. I love this quote: "we want to congratulate Lennert Wouters on his security research into the Starlink user terminal – his findings are likely why you're reading this, and help us create the best product possible." A lot better than companies that would try to prosecute him.. [0]: https://api.starlink.com/public-files/StarlinkWelcomesSecuri...
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Re: The hacking of Starlink terminals has begun
#56Quoted post unavailable.
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Re: The hacking of Starlink terminals has begun
#57The article compares the Russian jamming of Viasat with the compromise of a Starlink UT. No, no, no... This is really wrong! > As is typically the case with any technology, the increase in use and deployment of Starlink and other satellite constellations also means that threat actors have a greater interest in finding their security holes to attack them. > Indeed, Russia saw an advantage in taking out a satellite pro…
Starlink by its nature of using phased array antennas are inherently pretty hard to jam through traditional means. Not impossible but more difficult than older systems with simpler antennas.
Re: The hacking of Starlink terminals has begun
#58The article compares the Russian jamming of Viasat with the compromise of a Starlink UT. No, no, no... This is really wrong! > As is typically the case with any technology, the increase in use and deployment of Starlink and other satellite constellations also means that threat actors have a greater interest in finding their security holes to attack them. > Indeed, Russia saw an advantage in taking out a satellite pro…
Viasat attack was by hacking ground terminals, not jamming satellites.
The Russian approach is hybrid: in addition to the use of jamming (they use Divnomorye, Leer, Moskva, Krasukha, ...), traditional hacking is used to extend the damage range beyond what can be obtained through pure electronic warfare.
In the case of Viasat they had access to a badly configured VPN appliance and used it to deploy on the terminals. Which is a classical case of network compromise, not a direct hack of the user devices.
Also considering this aspect the comparison is not there: it's a local access to the hardware vs an "I own your infrastructure and I'm able to deploy my firmware".
Re: The hacking of Starlink terminals has begun
#59The article compares the Russian jamming of Viasat with the compromise of a Starlink UT. No, no, no... This is really wrong! > As is typically the case with any technology, the increase in use and deployment of Starlink and other satellite constellations also means that threat actors have a greater interest in finding their security holes to attack them. > Indeed, Russia saw an advantage in taking out a satellite pro…
The attack on Viasat was not related to it's GEO vs LEO situation, or blocking signals, it was an attack specifically on the consumer device to disable them
https://www.viasat.com/about/newsroom/blog/ka-sat-network-cy...
There's no reason that Starlink is any less susceptable to that. The attackers got into a terminal management network and issued various commands to shut down the endpoints. There's no reason an LEO constellation is more or less susceptible to this type of attack than a GEO system.
Re: The hacking of Starlink terminals has begun
#60Pretty sure Russia has physical satellite killer missiles just like US does?
Would a nuke in space even work to take out a group of them, maybe even via an EMP surge or are they hardened?
Sometimes I wonder if the world would be more peaceful if cellphone networks couldn't work anymore but there would be so much other chaos so guess not.