Monitors for abnormal increases in crosslink communication traffic, which may suggest unauthorized data transfers between spacecraft or accessing being attempted via crosslink.
| ID | Name | Description | |
| IA-0003 | Crosslink via Compromised Neighbor | Where spacecraft exchange data over inter-satellite links (RF or optical), a compromise on one vehicle can become a bridgehead to others. Threat actors exploit crosslink trust: shared routing, time distribution, service discovery, or gateway functions that forward commands and data between vehicles and ground. With knowledge of crosslink framing, addressing, and authentication semantics, an adversary can craft traffic that appears to originate from a trusted neighbor, injecting control messages, malformed service advertisements, or payload tasking that propagates across the mesh. In tightly coupled constellations, crosslinks may terminate on gateways that also touch the C&DH or payload buses, providing additional pivot opportunities. Because crosslink traffic is expected and often high volume, attacker activity can be timed to blend with synchronization intervals, ranging exchanges, or scheduled data relays. | |
| LM-0003 | Constellation Hopping via Crosslink | In networks where vehicles exchange data over inter-satellite links, a compromise on one spacecraft becomes a springboard to others. The attacker crafts crosslink traffic, routing updates, service advertisements, time/ephemeris distribution, file or tasking messages, that appears to originate from a trusted neighbor and targets gateway functions that bridge crosslink traffic into command/data paths. Once accepted, those messages can queue procedures, deliver configuration/table edits, or open file transfer sessions on adjacent vehicles. In mesh or hub-and-spoke constellations, this enables “hop-by-hop” spread: a single foothold uses shared trust and protocol uniformity to reach additional satellites without contacting the ground segment. | |