| REC-0001 |
Gather Spacecraft Design Information |
Threat actors may gather information about the victim spacecraft's design that can be used for future campaigns or to help perpetuate other techniques. Information about the spacecraft can include software, firmware, encryption type, purpose, as well as various makes and models of subsystems. |
|
REC-0001.01 |
Software |
Threat actors may gather information about the victim spacecraft's internal software that can be used for future campaigns or to help perpetuate other techniques. Information (e.g. source code, binaries, etc.) about commercial, open-source, or custom developed software may include a variety of details such as types, versions, and memory maps. Leveraging this information threat actors may target vendors of operating systems, flight software, or open-source communities to embed backdoors or for performing reverse engineering research to support offensive cyber operations. |
|
REC-0001.02 |
Firmware |
Threat actors may gather information about the victim spacecraft's firmware that can be used for future campaigns or to help perpetuate other techniques. Information about the firmware may include a variety of details such as type and versions on specific devices, which may be used to infer more information (ex. configuration, purpose, age/patch level, etc.). Leveraging this information threat actors may target firmware vendors to embed backdoors or for performing reverse engineering research to support offensive cyber operations. |
|
REC-0001.03 |
Cryptographic Algorithms |
Threat actors may gather information about any cryptographic algorithms used on the victim spacecraft's that can be used for future campaigns or to help perpetuate other techniques. Information about the algorithms can include type and private keys. Threat actors may also obtain the authentication scheme (i.e., key/password/counter values) and leverage it to establish communications for commanding the target spacecraft or any of its subsystems. Some spacecraft only require authentication vice authentication and encryption, therefore once obtained, threat actors may use any number of means to command the spacecraft without needing to go through a legitimate channel. The authentication information may be obtained through reconnaissance of the ground system or retrieved from the victim spacecraft. |
|
REC-0001.04 |
Data Bus |
Threat actors may gather information about the data bus used within the victim spacecraft that can be used for future campaigns or to help perpetuate other techniques. Information about the data bus can include the make and model which could lead to more information (ex. protocol, purpose, controller, etc.), as well as locations/addresses of major subsystems residing on the bus.
Threat actors may also gather information about the bus voltages of the victim spacecraft. This information can include optimal power levels, connectors, range, and transfer rate. |
|
REC-0001.05 |
Thermal Control System |
Threat actors may gather information about the thermal control system used with the victim spacecraft that can be used for future campaigns or to help perpetuate other techniques. Information gathered can include type, make/model, and varies analysis programs that monitor it. |
|
REC-0001.06 |
Maneuver & Control |
Threat actors may gather information about the station-keeping control systems within the victim spacecraft that can be used for future campaigns or to help perpetuate other techniques. Information gathered can include thruster types, propulsion types, attitude sensors, and data flows associated with the relevant subsystems. |
|
REC-0001.07 |
Payload |
Threat actors may gather information about the type(s) of payloads hosted on the victim spacecraft. This information could include specific commands, make and model, and relevant software. Threat actors may also gather information about the location of the payload on the bus and internal routing as it pertains to commands within the payload itself. |
|
REC-0001.08 |
Power |
Threat actors may gather information about the power system used within the victim spacecraft. This information can include type, power intake, and internal algorithms. Threat actors may also gather information about the solar panel configurations such as positioning, automated tasks, and layout. Additionally, threat actors may gather information about the batteries used within the victim spacecraft. This information can include the type, quantity, storage capacity, make and model, and location. |
|
REC-0001.09 |
Fault Management |
Threat actors may gather information about any fault management that may be present on the victim spacecraft. This information can help threat actors construct specific attacks that may put the spacecraft into a fault condition and potentially a more vulnerable state depending on the fault response. |
| REC-0002 |
Gather Spacecraft Descriptors |
Threat actors may gather information about the victim spacecraft's descriptors that can be used for future campaigns or to help perpetuate other techniques. Information about the descriptors may include a variety of details such as identity attributes, organizational structures, and mission operational parameters. |
|
REC-0002.01 |
Identifiers |
Threat actors may gather information about the victim spacecraft's identity attributes that can be used for future campaigns or to help perpetuate other techniques. Information may include a variety of details such as the satellite catalog number, international designator, mission name, and more. |
|
REC-0002.02 |
Organization |
Threat actors may gather information about the victim spacecraft's associated organization(s) that can be used for future campaigns or to help perpetuate other techniques. Collection efforts may target the mission owner/operator in order to conduct further attacks against the organization, individual, or other interested parties. Threat actors may also seek information regarding the spacecraft's designer/builder, including physical locations, key employees, and roles and responsibilities as they pertain to the spacecraft, as well as information pertaining to the mission's end users/customers. |
|
REC-0002.03 |
Operations |
Threat actors may gather information about the victim spacecraft's operations that can be used for future campaigns or to help perpetuate other techniques. Collection efforts may target mission objectives, orbital parameters such as orbit slot and inclination, user guides and schedules, etc. Additionally, threat actors may seek information about constellation deployments and configurations where applicable. |
| REC-0003 |
Gather Spacecraft Communications Information |
Threat actors may obtain information on the victim spacecraft's communication channels in order to determine specific commands, protocols, and types. Information gathered can include commanding patterns, antenna shape and location, beacon frequency and polarization, and various transponder information. |
|
REC-0003.01 |
Communications Equipment |
Threat actors may gather information regarding the communications equipment and its configuration that will be used for communicating with the victim spacecraft. This includes:
Antenna Shape: This information can help determine the range in which it can communicate, the power of it's transmission, and the receiving patterns.
Antenna Configuration/Location: This information can include positioning, transmission frequency, wavelength, and timing.
Telemetry Signal Type: Information can include timing, radio frequency wavelengths, and other information that can provide insight into the spacecraft's telemetry system.
Beacon Frequency: This information can provide insight into where the spacecrafts located, what it's orbit is, and how long it can take to communicate with a ground station.
Beacon Polarization: This information can help triangulate the spacecrafts it orbits the earth and determine how a satellite must be oriented in order to communicate with the victim spacecraft.
Transponder: This could include the number of transponders per band, transponder translation factor, transponder mappings, power utilization, and/or saturation point. |
|
REC-0003.02 |
Commanding Details |
Threat actors may gather information regarding the commanding approach that will be used for communicating with the victim spacecraft. This includes:
Commanding Signal Type: This can include timing, radio frequency wavelengths, and other information that can provide insight into the spacecraft's commanding system.
Valid Commanding Patterns: Most commonly, this comes in the form of a command database, but can also include other means that provide information on valid commands and the communication protocols used by the victim spacecraft.
Valid Commanding Periods: This information can provide insight into when a command will be accepted by the spacecraft and help the threat actor construct a viable attack campaign. |
|
REC-0003.03 |
Mission-Specific Channel Scanning |
Threat actors may seek knowledge about mission-specific communication channels dedicated to a payload. Such channels could be managed by a different organization than the owner of the spacecraft itself. |
|
REC-0003.04 |
Valid Credentials |
Threat actors may seek out valid credentials which can be utilized to facilitate several tactics throughout an attack. Credentials may include, but are not limited to: system service accounts, user accounts, maintenance accounts, cryptographic keys and other authentication mechanisms. |
| REC-0004 |
Gather Launch Information |
Threat actors may gather the launch date and time, location of the launch (country & specific site), organizations involved, launch vehicle, etc. This information can provide insight into protocols, regulations, and provide further targets for the threat actor, including specific vulnerabilities with the launch vehicle itself. |
|
REC-0004.01 |
Flight Termination |
Threat actor may obtain information regarding the vehicle's flight termination system. Threat actors may use this information to perform later attacks and target the vehicle's termination system to have desired impact on mission. |
| 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. |
|
REC-0005.01 |
Uplink Intercept |
Threat actors may capture the RF communications as it pertains to the uplink to the victim spacecraft. This information can contain commanding information that the threat actor can use to perform other attacks against the victim spacecraft. |
|
REC-0005.02 |
Downlink Intercept |
Threat actors may capture the RF communications as it pertains to the downlink of the victim spacecraft. This information can contain important telemetry such as onboard status and mission data. |
|
REC-0005.03 |
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. |
|
REC-0005.04 |
Active Scanning (RF/Optical) |
Threat actors may interfere with the link by actively transmitting packets to activate the transmitter and induce a reply. The scan can be similar to a brute force attack, aiming to guess the used frequencies and protocols to obtain a reply. |
| REC-0006 |
Gather FSW Development Information |
Threat actors may obtain information regarding the flight software (FSW) development environment for the victim spacecraft. This information may include the development environment, source code, compiled binaries, testing tools, and fault management. |
|
REC-0006.01 |
Development Environment |
Threat actors may gather information regarding the development environment for the victim spacecraft's FSW. This information can include IDEs, configurations, source code, environment variables, source code repositories, code "secrets", and compiled binaries. |
|
REC-0006.02 |
Security Testing Tools |
Threat actors may gather information regarding how a victim spacecraft is tested in regards to the FSW. Understanding the testing approach including tools could identify gaps and vulnerabilities that could be discovered and exploited by a threat actor. |
| REC-0007 |
Monitor for Safe-Mode Indicators |
Threat actors may gather information regarding safe-mode indicators on the victim spacecraft. Safe-mode is when all non-essential systems are shut down and only essential functions within the spacecraft are active. During this mode, several commands are available to be processed that are not normally processed. Further, many protections may be disabled at this time. |
| REC-0008 |
Gather Supply Chain Information |
Threat actors may gather information about a mission's supply chain or product delivery mechanisms that can be used for future campaigns or to help perpetuate other techniques. |
|
REC-0008.01 |
Hardware |
Threat actors may gather information that can be used to facilitate a future attack where they manipulate hardware components in the victim spacecraft prior to the customer receiving them in order to achieve data or system compromise. The threat actor can insert backdoors and give them a high level of control over the system when they modify the hardware or firmware in the supply chain. This would include ASIC and FPGA devices as well. |
|
REC-0008.02 |
Software |
Threat actors may gather information relating to the mission's software supply chain in order to facilitate future attacks to achieve data or system compromise. This attack can take place in a number of ways, including manipulation of source code, manipulation of the update and/or distribution mechanism, or replacing compiled versions with a malicious one. |
|
REC-0008.04 |
Business Relationships |
Adversaries may gather information about the victim's business relationships that can be used during targeting. Information about an mission’s business relationships may include a variety of details, including second or third-party organizations/domains (ex: managed service providers, contractors/sub-contractors, etc.) that have connected (and potentially elevated) network access or sensitive information. This information may also reveal supply chains and shipment paths for the victim’s hardware and software resources. |
| REC-0009 |
Gather Mission Information |
Threat actors may initially seek to gain an understanding of a target mission by gathering information commonly captured in a Concept of Operations (or similar) document and related artifacts. Information of interest includes, but is not limited to:
- the needs, goals, and objectives of the system
- system overview and key elements/instruments
- modes of operations (including operational constraints)
- proposed capabilities and the underlying science/technology used to provide capabilities (i.e., scientific papers, research studies, etc.)
- physical and support environments |
| IA-0001 |
Compromise Supply Chain |
Threat actors may manipulate or compromise products or product delivery mechanisms before the customer receives them in order to achieve data or system compromise. |
|
IA-0001.01 |
Software Dependencies & Development Tools |
Threat actors may manipulate software dependencies (i.e. dependency confusion) and/or development tools prior to the customer receiving them in order to achieve data or system compromise. Software binaries and applications often depend on external software to function properly. spacecraft developers may use open source projects to help with their creation. These open source projects may be targeted by threat actors as a way to add malicious code to the victim spacecraft's dependencies. |
|
IA-0001.02 |
Software Supply Chain |
Threat actors may manipulate software binaries and applications prior to the customer receiving them in order to achieve data or system compromise. This attack can take place in a number of ways, including manipulation of source code, manipulation of the update and/or distribution mechanism, or replacing compiled versions with a malicious one. |
| IA-0003 |
Crosslink via Compromised Neighbor |
Threat actors may compromise a victim spacecraft via the crosslink communications of a neighboring spacecraft that has been compromised. spacecraft in close proximity are able to send commands back and forth. Threat actors may be able to leverage this access to compromise other spacecraft once they have access to another that is nearby. |
| IA-0005 |
Rendezvous & Proximity Operations |
Threat actors may perform a space rendezvous which is a set of orbital maneuvers during which a spacecraft arrives at the same orbit and approach to a very close distance (e.g. within visual contact or close proximity) to a target spacecraft. |
|
IA-0005.02 |
Docked Vehicle / OSAM |
Threat actors may leverage docking vehicles to laterally move into a target spacecraft. If information is known on docking plans, a threat actor may target vehicles on the ground or in space to deploy malware to laterally move or execute malware on the target spacecraft via the docking interface. |
| IA-0007 |
Compromise Ground System |
Threat actors may initially compromise the ground system in order to access the target spacecraft. Once compromised, the threat actor can perform a multitude of initial access techniques, including replay, compromising FSW deployment, compromising encryption keys, and compromising authentication schemes. Threat actors may also perform further reconnaissance within the system to enumerate mission networks and gather information related to ground station logical topology, missions ran out of said ground station, birds that are in-band of targeted ground stations, and other mission system capabilities. |
|
IA-0007.01 |
Compromise On-Orbit Update |
Threat actors may manipulate and modify on-orbit updates before they are sent to the target spacecraft. This attack can be done in a number of ways, including manipulation of source code, manipulating environment variables, on-board table/memory values, or replacing compiled versions with a malicious one. |
|
IA-0007.02 |
Malicious Commanding via Valid GS |
Threat actors may compromise target owned ground systems components (e.g., front end processors, command and control software, etc.) that can be used for future campaigns or to perpetuate other techniques. These ground systems components have already been configured for communications to the victim spacecraft. By compromising this infrastructure, threat actors can stage, launch, and execute an operation. Threat actors may utilize these systems for various tasks, including Execution and Exfiltration. |
| IA-0008 |
Rogue External Entity |
Threat actors may gain access to a victim spacecraft through the use of a rogue external entity. With this technique, the threat actor does not need access to a legitimate ground station or communication site. |
|
IA-0008.01 |
Rogue Ground Station |
Threat actors may gain access to a victim spacecraft through the use of a rogue ground system. With this technique, the threat actor does not need access to a legitimate ground station or communication site. |
|
IA-0008.02 |
Rogue Spacecraft |
Threat actors may gain access to a target spacecraft using their own spacecraft that has the capability to maneuver within close proximity to a target spacecraft to carry out a variety of TTPs (i.e., eavesdropping, side-channel, etc.). Since many of the commercial and military assets in space are tracked, and that information is publicly available, attackers can identify the location of space assets to infer the best positioning for intersecting orbits. Proximity operations support avoidance of the larger attenuation that would otherwise affect the signal when propagating long distances, or environmental circumstances that may present interference. |
|
IA-0008.03 |
ASAT/Counterspace Weapon |
Threat actors may utilize counterspace platforms to access/impact spacecraft. These counterspace capabilities vary significantly in the types of effects they create, the level of technological sophistication required, and the level of resources needed to develop and deploy them. These diverse capabilities also differ in how they are employed and how easy they are to detect and attribute and the permanence of the effects they have on their target.*
*https://aerospace.csis.org/aerospace101/counterspace-weapons-101 |
| IA-0009 |
Trusted Relationship |
Access through trusted third-party relationship exploits an existing connection that has been approved for interconnection. Leveraging third party / approved interconnections to pivot into the target systems is a common technique for threat actors as these interconnections typically lack stringent access control due to the trusted status. |
|
IA-0009.02 |
Vendor |
Threat actors may target the trust between vendors and the target space vehicle. Missions often grant elevated access to vendors in order to allow them to manage internal systems as well as cloud-based environments. The vendor's access may be intended to be limited to the infrastructure being maintained but it may provide laterally movement into the target space vehicle. Attackers may leverage security weaknesses in the vendor environment to gain access to more critical mission resources or network locations. In the space vehicle context vendors may have direct commanding and updating capabilities outside of the primary communication channel. |
| IA-0010 |
Exploit Reduced Protections During Safe-Mode |
Threat actors may take advantage of the victim spacecraft being in safe mode and send malicious commands that may not otherwise be processed. Safe-mode is when all non-essential systems are shut down and only essential functions within the spacecraft are active. During this mode, several commands are available to be processed that are not normally processed. Further, many protections may be disabled at this time. |
| 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. |
|
EX-0001.01 |
Command Packets |
Threat actors may interact with the victim spacecraft by replaying captured commands to the spacecraft. While not necessarily malicious in nature, replayed commands can be used to overload the target spacecraft and cause it's onboard systems to crash, perform a DoS attack, or monitor various responses by the spacecraft. If critical commands are captured and replayed, thruster fires, then the impact could impact the spacecraft's attitude control/orbit. |
| EX-0003 |
Modify Authentication Process |
Threat actors may modify the internal authentication process of the victim spacecraft to facilitate initial access, recurring execution, or prevent authorized entities from accessing the spacecraft. This can be done through the modification of the software binaries or memory manipulation techniques. |
| EX-0006 |
Disable/Bypass Encryption |
Threat actors may perform specific techniques in order to bypass or disable the encryption mechanism onboard the victim spacecraft. By bypassing or disabling this particular mechanism, further tactics can be performed, such as Exfiltration, that may have not been possible with the internal encryption process in place. |
| EX-0011 |
Exploit Reduced Protections During Safe-Mode |
Threat actors may take advantage of the victim spacecraft being in safe mode and send malicious commands that may not otherwise be processed. Safe-mode is when all non-essential systems are shut down and only essential functions within the spacecraft are active. During this mode, several commands are available to be processed that are not normally processed. Further, many protections may be disabled at this time. |
| EX-0013 |
Flooding |
Threat actors use 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. |
|
EX-0013.01 |
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 spacecraft is consumed with processing these valid commands. |
|
EX-0013.02 |
Erroneous Input |
Threat actors inject noise/data/signals into the target channel so that legitimate messages cannot be correctly processed due to impacts to integrity or availability. Additionally, while this technique does not utilize system-relevant signals/commands/information, the target spacecraft may still consume valuable computing resources to process and discard the signal. |
| EX-0016 |
Jamming |
Threat actors may attempt to jam Global Navigation Satellite Systems (GNSS) signals (i.e. GPS, Galileo, etc.) to inhibit a spacecraft's position, navigation, and/or timing functions. |
|
EX-0016.03 |
Position, Navigation, and Timing (PNT) |
Threat actors may attempt to jam Global Navigation Satellite Systems (GNSS) signals (i.e. GPS, Galileo, etc.) to inhibit a spacecraft's position, navigation, and/or timing functions. |
|
EX-0016.01 |
Uplink Jamming |
An uplink jammer is used to interfere with signals going up to a satellite by creating enough noise that the satellite cannot distinguish between the real signal and the noise. Uplink jamming of the control link, for example, can prevent satellite operators from sending commands to a satellite. However, because the uplink jammer must be within the field of view of the antenna on the satellite receiving the command link, the jammer must be physically located within the vicinity of the command station on the ground.*
*https://aerospace.csis.org/aerospace101/counterspace-weapons-101 |
|
EX-0016.02 |
Downlink Jamming |
Downlink jammers target the users of a satellite by creating noise in the same frequency as the downlink signal from the satellite. A downlink jammer only needs to be as powerful as the signal being received on the ground and must be within the field of view of the receiving terminal’s antenna. This limits the number of users that can be affected by a single jammer. Since many ground terminals use directional antennas pointed at the sky, a downlink jammer typically needs to be located above the terminal it is attempting to jam. This limitation can be overcome by employing a downlink jammer on an air or space-based platform, which positions the jammer between the terminal and the satellite. This also allows the jammer to cover a wider area and potentially affect more users. Ground terminals with omnidirectional antennas, such as many GPS receivers, have a wider field of view and thus are more susceptible to downlink jamming from different angles on the ground.*
*https://aerospace.csis.org/aerospace101/counterspace-weapons-101 |
| EX-0014 |
Spoofing |
Threat actors may attempt to spoof the various sensor and controller data that is depended upon by various subsystems within the victim spacecraft. Subsystems rely on this data to perform automated tasks, process gather data, and return important information to the ground controllers. By spoofing this information, threat actors could trigger automated tasks to fire when they are not needed to, potentially causing the spacecraft to behave erratically. Further, the data could be processed erroneously, causing ground controllers to receive incorrect telemetry or scientific data, threatening the spacecraft's reliability and integrity. |
|
EX-0014.01 |
Time Spoof |
Threat actors may attempt to target the internal timers onboard the victim spacecraft and spoof their data. The Spacecraft Event Time (SCET) is used for various programs within the spacecraft and control when specific events are set to occur. Ground controllers use these timed events to perform automated processes as the spacecraft is in orbit in order for it to fulfill it's purpose. Threat actors that target this particular system and attempt to spoof it's data could cause these processes to trigger early or late. |
|
EX-0014.02 |
Bus Traffic |
Threat actors may attempt to target the main or secondary bus onboard the victim spacecraft and spoof their data. The spacecraft bus often directly processes and sends messages from the ground controllers to the various subsystems within the spacecraft and between the subsystems themselves. If a threat actor would target this system and spoof it internally, the subsystems would take the spoofed information as legitimate and process it as normal. This could lead to undesired effects taking place that could damage the spacecraft's subsystems, hosted payload, and critical data. |
|
EX-0014.03 |
Sensor Data |
Threat actors may target sensor data on the space vehicle to achieve their attack objectives. Sensor data is typically inherently trusted by the space vehicle therefore an attractive target for a threat actor. Spoofing the sensor data could affect the calculations and disrupt portions of a control loop as well as create uncertainty within the mission thereby creating temporary denial of service conditions for the mission. Affecting the integrity of the sensor data can have varying impacts on the space vehicle depending on decisions being made by the space vehicle using the sensor data. For example, spoofing data related to attitude control could adversely impact the space vehicles ability to maintain orbit. |
|
EX-0014.04 |
Position, Navigation, and Timing (PNT) |
Threat actors may attempt to spoof Global Navigation Satellite Systems (GNSS) signals (i.e. GPS, Galileo, etc.) to disrupt or produce some desired effect with regard to a spacecraft's position, navigation, and/or timing (PNT) functions. |
| PER-0002 |
Backdoor |
Threat actors may find and target various backdoors, or inject their own, within the victim spacecraft in the hopes of maintaining their attack. |
|
PER-0002.02 |
Software |
Threat actors may inject code to create their own backdoor to establish persistent access to the spacecraft. This may be done through modification of code throughout the software supply chain or through modification of the software-defined radio configuration (if applicable). |
| PER-0003 |
Ground System Presence |
Threat actors may compromise target owned ground systems that can be used for persistent access to the spacecraft or to perpetuate other techniques. These ground systems have already been configured for communications to the victim spacecraft. By compromising this infrastructure, threat actors can stage, launch, and execute persistently. |
| PER-0005 |
Valid Credentials |
Threat actors may seek out valid credentials which can be utilized to maintain persistent access to the spacecraft or related C2 systems and facilitate additional tactics throughout an attack. Credentials may include, but are not limited to: system service accounts, user accounts, maintenance accounts, cryptographic keys and other authentication mechanisms. |
| DE-0002 |
Prevent Downlink |
Threat actors may target the downlink connections to prevent the victim spacecraft from sending telemetry to the ground controllers. Telemetry is the only method in which ground controllers can monitor the health and stability of the spacecraft while in orbit. By disabling this downlink, threat actors may be able to stop mitigations from taking place. |
|
DE-0002.02 |
Jam Link Signal |
Threat actors may overwhelm/jam the downlink signal to prevent transmitted telemetry signals from reaching their destination without severe modification/interference, effectively leaving ground controllers unaware of vehicle activity during this time. Telemetry is the only method in which ground controllers can monitor the health and stability of the spacecraft while in orbit. By disabling this downlink, threat actors may be able to stop mitigations from taking place. |
| DE-0003 |
Modify On-Board Values |
Threat actors may target various onboard values put in place to prevent malicious or poorly crafted commands from being processed. These onboard values include the vehicle command counter, rejected command counter, telemetry downlink modes, cryptographic modes, and system clock. |
|
DE-0003.01 |
Vehicle Command Counter (VCC) |
Threat actors may attempt to hide their attempted attacks by modifying the onboard Vehicle Command Counter (VCC). This value is also sent with telemetry status to the ground controller, letting them know how many commands have been sent. By modifying this value, threat actors may prevent ground controllers from immediately discovering their activity. |
|
DE-0003.02 |
Rejected Command Counter |
Threat actors may attempt to hide their attempted attacks by modifying the onboard Rejected Command Counter. Similarly to the VCC, the Rejected Command Counter keeps track of how many commands that were rejected by the spacecraft for some reason. Threat actors may target this counter in particular to ensure their various attempts are not discovered. |
|
DE-0003.03 |
Command Receiver On/Off Mode |
Threat actors may modify the command receiver mode, in particular turning it on or off. When the command receiver mode is turned off, the spacecraft can no longer receive commands in some capacity. Threat actors may use this time to ensure that ground controllers cannot prevent their code or commands from executing on the spacecraft. |
|
DE-0003.04 |
Command Receivers Received Signal Strength |
Threat actors may target the on-board command receivers received signal parameters (i.e., automatic gain control (AGC)) in order to stop specific commands or signals from being processed by the spacecraft. For ground controllers to communicate with spacecraft in orbit, the on-board receivers need to be configured to receive signals with a specific signal to noise ratio (ratio of signal power to the noise power). Targeting values related to the antenna signaling that are modifiable can prevent the spacecraft from receiving ground commands. |
|
DE-0003.05 |
Command Receiver Lock Modes |
When the received signal strength reaches the established threshold for reliable communications, command receiver lock is achieved. Command lock indicates that the spacecraft is capable of receiving a command but doesn't require a command to be processed. Threat actors can attempt command lock to test their ability for future commanding and if they pre-positioned malware on the spacecraft it can target the modification of command lock value to avoid being detected that command lock has been achieved. |
|
DE-0003.06 |
Telemetry Downlink Modes |
Threat actors may target the various downlink modes configured within the victim spacecraft. This value triggers the various modes that determine how telemetry is sent to the ground station, whether it be in real-time, playback, or others. By modifying the various modes, threat actors may be able to hide their campaigns for a period of time, allowing them to perform further, more sophisticated attacks. |
|
DE-0003.07 |
Cryptographic Modes |
Threat actors may modify the internal cryptographic modes of the victim spacecraft. Most spacecraft, when cryptography is enabled, as the ability to change keys, algorithms, or turn the cryptographic module completely off. Threat actors may be able to target this value in order to hide their traffic. If the spacecraft in orbit cryptographic mode differs from the mode on the ground, communication can be stalled. |
|
DE-0003.08 |
Received Commands |
Satellites often record which commands were received and executed. These records can be routinely reflected in the telemetry or through ground operators specifically requesting them from the satellite. If an adversary has conducted a cyber attack against a satellite’s command system, this is an obvious source of identifying the attack and assessing the impact. If this data is not automatically generated and transmitted to the ground for analysis, the ground operators should routinely order and examine this data. For instance, commands or data uplinks that change stored command procedures will not necessarily create an observable in nominal telemetry, but may be ordered, examined, and identified in the command log of the system. Threat actors may manipulate these stored logs to avoid detection. |
|
DE-0003.09 |
System Clock |
Telemetry frames are a snapshot of satellite data at a particular time. Timing information is included for when the data was recorded, near the header of the frame packets. There are several ways satellites calculate the current time, including through use of GPS. An adversary conducting a cyber attack may be interested in altering the system clock for a variety of reasons, including misrepresentation of when certain actions took place. |
|
DE-0003.10 |
GPS Ephemeris |
A satellite with a GPS receiver can use ephemeris data from GPS satellites to estimate its own position in space. A hostile actor could spoof the GPS signals to cause erroneous calculations of the satellite’s position. The received ephemeris data is often telemetered and can be monitored for indications of GPS spoofing. Reception of ephemeris data that changes suddenly without a reasonable explanation (such as a known GPS satellite handoff), could provide an indication of GPS spoofing and warrant further analysis. Threat actors could also change the course of the vehicle and falsify the telemetered data to temporarily convince ground operators the vehicle is still on a proper course. |
|
DE-0003.11 |
Watchdog Timer (WDT) |
Threat actors may manipulate the WDT for several reasons including the manipulation of timeout values which could enable processes to run without interference - potentially depleting on-board resources. |
| DE-0004 |
Masquerading |
Threat actors may gain access to a victim spacecraft by masquerading as an authorized entity. This can be done several ways, including through the manipulation of command headers, spoofing locations, or even leveraging Insider's access (i.e., Insider Threat) |
| DE-0005 |
Exploit Reduced Protections During Safe-Mode |
Threat actors may take advantage of the victim spacecraft being in safe mode and send malicious commands that may not otherwise be processed. Safe-mode is when all non-essential systems are shut down and only essential functions within the spacecraft are active. During this mode, several commands are available to be processed that are not normally processed. Further, many protections (i.e. security features) may be disabled at this time which would ensure the threat actor achieves evasion. |
| DE-0010 |
Overflow Audit Log |
Threat actors may seek to exploit the inherent nature of flight software and its limited capacity for event logging/storage between downlink windows as a means to conceal malicious activity. |
| DE-0011 |
Valid Credentials |
Threat actors may utilize valid credentials to conduct an attack against a spacecraft or related system as a means to conceal their activity. Credentials may include, but are not limited to: system service accounts, user accounts, maintenance accounts, cryptographic keys and other authentication mechanisms. |
| LM-0002 |
Exploit Lack of Bus Segregation |
Threat actors may exploit victim spacecraft on-board flat architecture for lateral movement purposes. Depending on implementation decisions, spacecraft can have a completely flat architecture where remote terminals, sub-systems, payloads, etc. can all communicate on the same main bus without any segmentation, authentication, etc. Threat actors can leverage this poor design to send specially crafted data from one compromised devices or sub-system. This could enable the threat actor to laterally move to another area of the spacecraft or escalate privileges (i.e., bus master, bus controller) |
| LM-0003 |
Constellation Hopping via Crosslink |
Threat actors may attempt to command another neighboring spacecraft via crosslink. spacecraft in close proximity are often able to send commands back and forth. Threat actors may be able to leverage this access to compromise another spacecraft. |
| LM-0004 |
Visiting Vehicle Interface(s) |
Threat actors may move from one spacecraft to another through visiting vehicle interfaces. When a vehicle docks with a spacecraft, many programs are automatically triggered in order to ensure docking mechanisms are locked. This entails several data points and commands being sent to and from the spacecraft and the visiting vehicle. If a threat actor were to compromise a visiting vehicle, they could target these specific programs in order to send malicious commands to the victim spacecraft once docked. |
| LM-0007 |
Valid Credentials |
Threat actors may utilize valid credentials move laterally across spacecraft subsystems, communication buses, or additional spacecraft in a constellation. Credentials may include, but are not limited to: system service accounts, user accounts, maintenance accounts, cryptographic keys and other authentication mechanisms. |
| 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 the spacecraft is within certain location so the data can be intercepted on the downlink by threat actor ground terminals. |
| EXF-0002 |
Side-Channel Attack |
Threat actors may use a side-channel attack attempts to gather information by measuring or exploiting indirect effects of the spacecraft. Information within the spacecraft can be extracted through these side-channels in which sensor data is analyzed in non-trivial ways to recover subtle, hidden or unexpected information. A series of measurements of a side-channel constitute an identifiable signature which can then be matched against a signature database to identify target information, without having to explicitly decode the side-channel. |
|
EXF-0002.02 |
Electromagnetic Leakage Attacks |
Threat actors can leverage electromagnetic emanations to obtain sensitive information. The electromagnetic radiations attain importance when they are hardware generated emissions, especially emissions from the cryptographic module. Electromagnetic leakage attacks have been shown to be more successful than power analysis attacks on chicards. If proper protections are not in place on the spacecraft, the circuitry is exposed and hence leads to stronger emanations of EM radiations. If the circuitry is exposed, it provides an easier environment to study the electromagnetic emanations from each individual component. |
|
EXF-0002.03 |
Traffic Analysis Attacks |
In a terrestrial environment, threat actors use traffic analysis attacks to analyze traffic flow to gather topological information. This traffic flow can divulge information about critical nodes, such as the aggregator node in a sensor network. In the space environment, specifically with relays and constellations, traffic analysis can be used to understand the energy capacity of spacecraft node and the fact that the transceiver component of a spacecraft node consumes the most power. The spacecraft nodes in a constellation network limit the use of the transceiver to transmit or receive information either at a regulated time interval or only when an event has been detected. This generally results in an architecture comprising some aggregator spacecraft nodes within a constellation network. These spacecraft aggregator nodes are the sensor nodes whose primary purpose is to relay transmissions from nodes toward the ground station in an efficient manner, instead of monitoring events like a normal node. The added functionality of acting as a hub for information gathering and preprocessing before relaying makes aggregator nodes an attractive target to side channel attacks. A possible side channel attack could be as simple as monitoring the occurrences and duration of computing activities at an aggregator node. If a node is frequently in active states (instead of idle states), there is high probability that the node is an aggregator node and also there is a high probability that the communication with the node is valid. Such leakage of information is highly undesirable because the leaked information could be strategically used by threat actors in the accumulation phase of an attack. |
| 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 |
|
EXF-0003.01 |
Uplink Intercept |
Threat actors may target the uplink connection from the victim ground infrastructure to the target spacecraft 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. |
|
EXF-0003.02 |
Downlink Intercept |
Threat actors may target the downlink connection from the victim spacecraft in order to exfiltrate telemetry or payload data. This data can include health information of the spacecraft or mission data that is being collected/analyzed on the spacecraft. Downlinked data can even include mirrored command sessions which can be used for future campaigns or to help perpetuate other techniques. |
| 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. |
| EXF-0007 |
Compromised Ground System |
Threat actors may compromise target owned ground systems that can be used for future campaigns or to perpetuate other techniques. These ground systems have already been configured for communications to the victim spacecraft. By compromising this infrastructure, threat actors can stage, launch, and execute an operation. Threat actors may utilize these systems for various tasks, including Execution and Exfiltration. |
| EXF-0008 |
Compromised Developer Site |
Threat actors may compromise development environments located within the ground system or a developer/partner site. This attack can take place in a number of different ways, including manipulation of source code, manipulating environment variables, or replacing compiled versions with a malicious one. This technique is usually performed before the target spacecraft is in orbit, with the hopes of adding malicious code to the actual FSW during the development process. |
| EXF-0009 |
Compromised Partner Site |
Threat actors may compromise access to partner sites that can be used for future campaigns or to perpetuate other techniques. These sites are typically configured for communications to the primary ground station(s) or in some cases the spacecraft itself. Unlike mission operated ground systems, partner sites may provide an easier target for threat actors depending on the company, roles and responsibilities, and interests of the third-party. By compromising this infrastructure, threat actors can stage, launch, and execute an operation. Threat actors may utilize these systems for various tasks, including Execution and Exfiltration. |
| EXF-0010 |
Payload Communication Channel |
Threat actors can deploy malicious software on the payload(s) which can send data through the payload channel. Payloads often have their own communication channels outside of the main TT&C pathway which presents an opportunity for exfiltration of payload data or other spacecraft data depending on the interface and data exchange. |