WHITEPAPER | April 5, 2022

Cyberattacks on SATCOM: Understanding the Threat

In 2014, Ruben Santamarta, Principal Security Consultant with IOActive, published a whitepaper titled “A Wake-up Call for SATCOM Security.” It detailed the discovery of an exceptionally weak security posture across a number of SATCOM terminals from a range of manufacturers. Four years later in 2018, Ruben published a follow up titled “Last Call for SATCOM Security” which detailed a thorough investigation into the security of SATCOM equipment across the Aviation, Maritime, and Military industries. In light of the cyberattacks at the start of the war in Ukraine, once again, the security posture was found to be overwhelmingly poor and in need of immediate and thorough corrective action by manufacturers.