here
REC-0005 |
Eavesdropping |
Threat actors may seek to capture network communications throughout the ground station and radio frequency (RF) communication used for uplink and downlink communications. RF communication frequencies vary between 30MHz and 60 GHz. Threat actors may capture RF communications using specialized hardware, such as software defined radio (SDR), handheld radio, or a computer with radio demodulator turned to the communication frequency. Network communications may be captured using packet capture software while the threat actor is on the target network. |
|
.01 |
Uplink Intercept |
Threat actors may capture the RF communications as it pertains to the uplink to the victim SV. This information can contain commanding information that the threat actor can use to perform other attacks against the victim SV. |
|
.02 |
Downlink Intercept |
Threat actors may capture the RF communications as it pertains to the downlink of the victim SV. This information can contain important telemetry such as onboard status and mission data. |
|
.03 |
Proximity Operations |
Threat actors may capture signals and/or network communications as they travel on-board the vehicle (i.e., EMSEC/TEMPEST), via RF, or terrestrial networks. This information can be decoded to determine commanding and telemetry protocols, command times, and other information that could be used for future attacks. |
here
here
IA-0003 |
Crosslink via Compromised Neighbor |
Threat actors may compromise a victim SV via the crosslink communications of a neighboring SV that has been compromised. SVs in close proximity are able to send commands back and forth. Threat actors may be able to leverage this access to compromise other SVs once they have access to another that is nearby. |
here
EX-0001 |
Replay |
Replay attacks involve threat actors recording previously data streams and then resending them at a later time. This attack can be used to fingerprint systems, gain elevated privileges, or even cause a denial of service. |
|
.01 |
Command Packets |
Threat actors may interact with the victim SV by replaying captured commands to the SV. While not necessarily malicious in nature, replayed commands can be used to overload the target SV and cause it's onboard systems to crash, perform a DoS attack, or monitor various responses by the SV. If critical commands are captured and replayed, thruster fires, then the impact could impact the SV's attitude control/orbit. |
EX-0013 |
Flooding |
Threat actors use jamming and flooding attacks to disrupt communications by injecting unexpected noise or messages into a transmission channel. There are several types of attacks that are consistent with this method of exploitation, and they can produce various outcomes. Although, the most prominent of the impacts are denial of service or data corruption. Several elements of the space vehicle may be targeted by jamming and flooding attacks, and depending on the time of the attack, it can have devastating results to the availability of the system. |
|
.02 |
Erroneous Data |
Threat actors inject noise into the target channel so that legitimate messages cannot be correctly processed due to data integrity impacts. Additionally, while this technique does not utilize valid commands, the target SV still must consume computing resources to process and discard the signal. |
|
.01 |
Valid Commands |
Threat actors may utilize valid commanding as a mechanism for flooding as the processing of these valid commands could expend valuable resources like processing power and battery usage. Flooding the spacecraft bus, sub-systems or link layer with valid commands can create temporary denial of service conditions for the space vehicle while the SV is consumed with processing these valid commands. |
here
EXF-0001 |
Replay |
Threat actors may exfiltrate data by replaying commands and capturing the telemetry or payload data as it is sent down. One scenario would be the threat actor replays commands to downlink payload data once SV is within certain location so the data can be intercepted on the downlink by threat actor ground terminals. |
EXF-0003 |
Eavesdropping |
Threat actors may seek to capture network communications throughout the ground station and communication channel (i.e. radio frequency, optical) used for uplink and downlink communications |
|
.01 |
Uplink Intercept |
Threat actors may target the uplink connection from the victim ground infrastructure to the target SV in order to exfiltrate commanding data. Depending on the implementation (i.e., encryption) the captured uplink data can be used to further other attacks like command link intrusion, replay, etc. |
|
.02 |
Downlink Intercept |
Threat actors may target the downlink connection from the victim SV in order to exfiltrate telemetry or payload data. This data can include health information of the SV or whatever mission data that is being collected/analyzed on the SV. |
EXF-0004 |
Out-of-Band Communications Link |
Threat actors may attempt to exfiltrate data via the out-of-band communication channels. While performing eavesdropping on the primary/second uplinks and downlinks is a method for exfiltration, some space vehicles leverage out-of-band communication links to perform actions on the space vehicle (i.e., re-keying). These out-of-band links would occur on completely different channels/frequencies and often operate on separate hardware on the space vehicle. Typically these out-of-band links have limited built-for-purpose functionality and likely do not present an initial access vector but they do provide ample exfiltration opportunity. |
here
PER-0003 |
Ground System Presence |
Threat actors may compromise target owned ground systems that can be used for persistent access to the SV or to perpetuate other techniques. These ground systems have already been configured for communications to the victim SV. By compromising this infrastructure, threat actors can stage, launch, and execute persistently. |
here
here
LM-0003 |
Constellation Hopping via Crosslink |
Threat actors may attempt to command another neighboring spacecraft via crosslink. SVs in close proximity are often able to send commands back and forth. Threat actors may be able to leverage this access to compromise another SV. |
here