Armor Up Satellites for Space Superiority

Protecting America’s critical infrastructure from cyber hacks is a never-ending problem – and not just on Earth, but on orbit, too. Space is the new frontier for cyberattacks. 

Where there is critical infrastructure, there are also hackers. Finding ways to attack America’s military, intelligence, and commercial satellites is a major preoccupation for adversaries. 

China is already gunning for U.S. satellites. “This is the most complex and challenging strategic environment that we have seen in a long time, if not ever,” Vice Chief of Space Operations General Michael Guetlein testified to the Senate Armed Services Committee on March 12, 2025. Some attack vectors are kinetic. Picture robot arms dragging satellites to graveyard orbits. Guetlein also described a 2024 Chinese test of dogfighting satellites in space. 

Non-kinetic tactics are just as menacing. Jamming, spoofing, and cyberattacks pose increasing threats. “We are at war in the cyber realm, in the non-kinetic realm,” stated Katie Arrington, who was performing the duties of the Pentagon’s Chief Information Officer.

To carry out their missions, satellites need cyber intrusion detection.

The root cause of the increasing threats to satellites lies in geopolitics. For state actors like Russia and China, hacking attempts termed Advanced Persistent Threats aim to feed their global espionage projects and probe for vulnerabilities to disrupt critical infrastructure.  Recent examples demonstrate how flagrant these attacks can be. The FBI confirmed that the Russia-based cybercrime group Darkside was behind the Colonial Pipeline ransomware attack on May 7, 2021.  The embarrassing 2023 assault on the State Department and Commerce Department emails left no one in doubt of China’s “willingness to operate in a malicious and reckless manner in cyberspace,” as the State Department concluded.  Salt Typhoon was a Chinese hit on telecommunications companies and numerous other worldwide firms.  The U.S. responded with sanctions and a $10 million reward for identifying hackers working on behalf of foreign governments. 

Space and cyber combine into the perfect storm. As with terrestrial conflicts, cyberattacks in space can be debilitating. Elevated to crisis or wartime conditions, cyber attacks on satellites pose serious vulnerabilities.

“Cyber has the largest attack surface,” explained Lieutenant General John Shaw, former Deputy Commander of the United States Space Force, in a 2022 interview.  “It can target the ground station, the command and control station, the satellites themselves, the communication links between the satellites and the ground stations, and the users who are utilizing the satellite capability,” he explained.

For years, space systems’ ground stations were regarded as the primary point of vulnerability for hackers. The infamous 2022 attack to disable Viasat’s Ka-band service targeted modems in synchronization with the launch of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.  Space agencies were also frequent targets. Poland’s space agency was attacked in March 2025, with Warsaw pointing a finger at Moscow.  

However, adversaries and suspicious actors are also attempting direct cyberattacks on U.S. satellites. Protected waveforms and cryptography added security for communications, but the rising level of cyberattacks on orbit demands dedicated solutions.

According to the U.S. Space Force, space superiority means ensuring “freedom of movement in space for our forces while denying the same to our adversaries.”  The U.S. Space Force has long been aware of these problems, as formally recognized in a 2020 Space Policy Directive.  “Examples of malicious cyber activities harmful to space operations include spoofing sensor data; corrupting sensor systems; jamming or sending unauthorized commands for guidance and control; injecting malicious code; and conducting denial-of-service attacks,” it stated.

The U.S. Space Force has taken numerous steps to preserve space superiority. Recently, the Space Force tapped Vantor to provide additional non-Earth imagery to monitor for space-based threats, like rogue satellites and debris.  Intrusion detection and protection of satellites on orbit is another high priority.

Think of satellites on orbit as highly challenging operational technology systems. SNC, an aerospace company, has developed a solution called Binary Armor, which counters cyber threats to edge components like circuit breakers and valves for terrestrial pipelines, power grids, meters, and other critical infrastructure. 

Working with the U.S. Space Force, Binary Armor has been adapted into devices for Geosynchronous (GEO) and Low Earth Orbit (LEO) satellites. Then, in 2025, a software version of Binary Armor was remotely installed on another company’s technology demonstration satellite, where it compared the satellite’s speed and position, sending log message alerts to operators on the ground when anomalies occurred.

Quick alerts of anomalies are crucial in detecting cyberattacks. When China hacked the State Department, an anomaly gave the attack away. “In an odd way, despite all the advances we’ve had in cybersecurity … it sometimes comes down to one person seeing something that’s anomalous,” Christopher Painter, the former cybersecurity coordinator for the State Department, said of nabbing the China hack on the State Department in 2023.  That level of monitoring is essential for space-based assets. Protection systems need to be part of future satellite design.

“With the successful demonstration of Binary Armor on-orbit, we have shown that our technology can provide robust cybersecurity for critical space assets and take appropriate action,” said Dan Smith, SNC's Director of Cybersecurity Programs. The Binary Armor software has met NASA’s Technology Readiness Level (TRL) 8, indicating that the system is what NASA refers to as “flight qualified” through testing and demonstration. 

Commercial operators should also consider protection for thousands of satellites scheduled for launch over the next few years. Jamming and spoofing of sensors and guidance, data interception, data theft, corruption of sensors, denial-of-service attacks, and even hijacking systems are among the concerns laid out by the National Institute of Standards & Technology in guidelines for commercial satellite operators.   

Space vehicle defense needs will continue to evolve, and so will the threats. China will be searching for attack pathways to minimize the U.S.’s advantages in space. “As the United States integrates Starlink technology into military space assets to gain a strategic advantage over its adversaries, other countries increasingly perceive Starlink as a security threat in nuclear, space, and cyber domains,” declared professors from China’s National University of Defense Technology in a 2023 paper. 

Another lesson from the terrestrial world of cybersecurity is that industry should take a proactive approach. “CEOs and Boards of Directors must embrace cyber risk as a matter of good governance and prioritize cybersecurity as a strategic imperative and business enabler,” the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency concluded. That goes for space, as well. 

Dr. Rebecca Grant is a national security analyst based in Washington, DC specializing in defense and aerospace research and national security consulting.