Christoph Bader (Airbus Defence & Space GmbH)

Recent reports on the state of satellite security reveal that many satellite systems that are operational today do not implement sufficient protection against cyber-attacks. Most notably is the fact that many systems lack of cryptographic protection on their TT&C link. If COMSEC protection on the TT&C link is missing an attacker with access to the RF link can eavesdrop on the communication and, even worse, could be able to inject specially crafted messages that would be processed by the satellite.

In this paper, we analyze needs and establish high level requirements for concepts aiming to secure TT&C link communication (with respect to confidentiality and authentication). The requirements cover key aspects of security and operations. We assess existing standards (SDLS and SDLS EP) against our requirements and determine that SDLS is suitable for traffic protection while SDLS EP does not meet all security requirements for key management (namely, it does not meet post compromise security). Finally, we discuss alternative key management approaches such as stateless authenticated key agreement and stateful authenticated key agreement (or key evolution protocols) and how they meet our requirements.

View More Papers

The Advantages of Distributed TCAM Firewalls in Automotive Real-Time...

Evan Allen (Virginia Tech), Zeb Bowden (Virginia Tech Transportation Institute), J. Scot Ransbottom (Virginia Tech)

Read More

AegisSat: A Satellite Cybersecurity Testbed

Roee Idan, Roy Peled, Aviel Ben Siman Tov, Eli Markus, Boris Zadov, Ofir Chodeda, Yohai Fadida (Ben Gurion University of the Negev), Oliver Holschke, Jan Plachy (T-Labs (Research & Innovation)), Yuval Elovici, Asaf Shabtai (Ben Gurion University of the Negev)

Read More

The Impact of Workload on Phishing Susceptibility: An Experiment

Sijie Zhuo (University of Auckland), Robert Biddle (University of Auckland and Carleton University, Ottawa), Lucas Betts, Nalin Asanka Gamagedara Arachchilage, Yun Sing Koh, Danielle Lottridge, Giovanni Russello (University of Auckland)

Read More

Towards Integrating Human-Centered Cybersecurity Research Into Practice: A Practitioner...

Julie Haney, Clyburn Cunningham, Susanne Furman (National Institute of Standards and Technology)

Read More