Preventing Cyber Effects From Impacting the Space Domain

The U.S. Space Force must continue to evolve to protect the military’s space-related assets from cyber attacks, as more and more cyber effects are designed to impact space systems.

More than 30 nations have added cyber warfare, and nation-state actors are increasingly conducting nefarious cyber activities pointed at extraterrestrial assets, warned Brig. Gen. Stephen E. Slade, mobilization assistant to the commander, Space Operations Command, Peterson Space Force Base, Colorado.

“The governments of China, Russia, Iran and North Korea are aggressively using advanced cyber capabilities to pursue their agendas that run counter to broadly accepted international laws,” Slade stated, speaking at the AFCEA Rocky Mountain Cyberspace Symposium in Colorado Springs on February 11.

“In the past decade alone, publicly, we are aware of well more than 200 state-on-state space cyber attacks that have occurred in the world. And if we are aware of 200, how many other space cyber-related-type attacks were there?” he said.

For example, Russia attacked commercial satellite communications (COMSATCOM)—specifically Viasat’s system at the beginning of the invasion of Ukraine. Russia's intent was to impact the Ukrainian military’s use of the constellation for communications, but the cyber attack also impacted thousands of users across Europe.  

Slade warned that Russia is continuing to try to digitally attack another COMSATCOM platform, the Starlink constellation.

“Today, Russia continues openly to use computer cyber network exploitation to go after the Starlink constellation,” he stated. “Why? We don't know exactly, but I would think that they're probably doing that to build out the battlespace and figure out how they can use this for combat operations in the future. It's a real threat.”

However, it is the People’s Republic of China that remains the most serious threat to U.S. space assets—as well as to U.S. critical infrastructure. “Their goal is to destroy our ability to maintain space superiority,” Slade said. “Additionally, they want to prevent the United States from projecting space power to enable our joint force and protect and defend our allies and partners.”

The Space Force’s Space Training and Readiness Command (STARCOM) is responsible for preparing the service’s 8,600 guardians to defend against these dangerous threats. The service is doubling down to make sure enlisted personnel as well as officers are cyber prepared, said Brig. Gen. Matthew S. Cantore, deputy commander of STARCOM.

“At STARCOM, we are very focused on this mission area, both in terms of ensuring cyber security throughout our systems but also preparing guardians," he said.

A lot is at stake, both generals warned. Guardians must be able to protect the comprehensive array of assets on the ground, in the air and in space, including ground terminals, data links and spacecraft operations, all while adversaries use cyber means to disrupt space assets. And as the Space Force will provide the space-based layer for the joint long-range kill chain, it is a no-fail mission, Cantore said.

To improve, STARCOM is increasing the cyber preparation of guardians on both the enlisted side and the officer levels.

“We've got 33 certifications related to cyber, and we train for everything from security, to [hacking], penetration testing,” he explained. “We give ourselves range capability so we can actually get out there and practice. We start the foundation of knowledge that we need to have in our cyber skill set across the force.”

This summer, STARCOM will see the first group of leaders coming out of the new officer training course that brought together the disciplines of space operations, cyber operations and intelligence.

“They're going to focus their cyber curriculum on the network fundamentals, protocol analysis, overviews of operating systems and endpoints, and then that is also going to give them fundamental understanding of offensive and defensive cyberspace operations,” Cantore shared. “As we graduate the first cohort, we're going to have a new set of lieutenants that have a new set of skills, something that I didn't even have a few years ago when I was the 21st Operations Group commander and we operated the Space Surveillance Network.”

On the enlisted side, STARCOM has set a number of cyber-related courses for new guardians who have graduated from basic military training.

“They're then going to move on to a variety of foundational skill sets,” Cantore explained. “One of the courses I'm most interested and excited about is the cyber combat course. This is a 15-week course for all of our enlisted guardians going forward. This is going to give them the basic cyber initial skills.”

The course includes blue team level one certification, as well as a specific penetration test certification.

“We've got 93 graduates of this course so far, and we have an additional 86 that are in the program right now, going to graduate in a few months here, and so we're building out that cyber team,” Cantore said.

“The United States Space Force is focusing our efforts on cyber-enabled space operations,” Slade added. “Our purpose is to assure space superiority through aggressive cyber hunting operations and accelerating the fielding of combat-credible space and cyber forces.”

The service does need help from academia and industry partners to help the Space Force increase its cyber defense capabilities. “We have legacy systems out there that did not have cyber built into them, and we have to fix that,” Slade suggested.

With the Space Force marking its fifth anniversary and STARCOM existing for about half that time, the service has moved very quickly, noted Maj. Gen. Kim Crider (Ret.), who moderated the discussion.

But going forward, the service will only have to move faster.

“Cyber-enabled threats are growing exponentially as we develop new capabilities, and each day, we’re kind of outpacing ourselves when it comes to a cyber defense standpoint,” Slade noted. “We have to look at that and consider that as we move forward."

The Rocky Mountain Cyber Symposium is organized by AFCEA International's Rocky Mountain Chapter. SIGNAL Media is the official media of AFCEA International.