"Now it turns out that they're also contributing to a massive leak of personal, corporate, and government data, as researchers at UC San Diego and the University of Maryland were alarmed to discover. First reported by Wired, the joint study uncovered glaring holes in satellite security enabling "anyone with a few hundred dollars of consumer grade hardware" to rustle up a huge collection of unencrypted data beamed down to Earth."
"Probably the most damning thing the team recovered was a trove of unencrypted US and Mexican governmental traffic, including communications and network info from US military ships, surveillance operation data, and Mexican military and police chatter. In the case of US military ships, there was so much exposed data that researchers were able to piece together the names of individual vessels, enabling them to run full background checks."
More than 12,000 active satellites and thousands of defunct craft occupy orbit, producing interference and unintended radiation that affects radio astronomy. Satellite communications show significant security weaknesses that permit interception with inexpensive consumer hardware. Using a modest fixed-position dish, intercepts included calls, texts, and internet traffic from a major cellular network, in-flight WiFi, industrial control system messages, and retail logistics data. Intercepts also contained unencrypted US and Mexican government traffic, including military ship communications, surveillance operation data, and police chatter. Exposed military ship data included vessel names that enabled background checks. Critical infrastructure depends on an inadequately secured satellite ecosystem.
Read at Futurism
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