Satellite security lags decades behind the state of the art

Moritz Schloegel ( left ) and Johannes Willbold analysed the safety of satellites. In their hands they hold a model of a small satellite. Researchers have tested the software of three satellites. And they found many standard security mechanisms missing. Thousands of satellites are currently orbiting the Earth, and there will be many more in the future. Researchers from Ruhr University Bochum and the CISPA Helmholtz Center for Information Security in Saarbrücken have assessed the security of these systems from an IT perspective. They analysed three current low-earth orbit satellites and found that, from a technical point of view, hardly any modern security concepts were implemented.