Security News > 2022 > March > Agencies Warn on Satellite Hacks & GPS Jamming Affecting Airplanes, Critical Infrastructure
In a warning to aviation authorities and air operators on Thursday, the European Union Aviation Safety Agency warned of satellite jamming and spoofing attacks across a broad swath of Eastern Europe that could affect air navigation systems.
The warning came in tandem with a separate alert from the FBI and the U.S. Cybersecurity Infrastructure and Security Agency that hackers could be targeting satellite communications networks in general.
The concerns over the hacking of satellite systems in general also began Feb. 24, when Ukrainian official reported that hackers had apparently compromised one of the nation's satellite systems.
The cyberattackers took advantage of a misconfigured management interface for the satellite network, Viasat said.
The agency advised satellite operators to start monitoring at ingress and egress points for anomalous traffic, including the use of various remote access tools; connections out to "Unexpected" network segments; unauthorized use of local or backup accounts; unexpected traffic to terminals or closed-group SATCOM networks; and brute-force login attempts.
Satellite customers meanwhile should implement multifactor authentication on their accounts, CISA warned, and should shore up least-privilege approaches for any sensitive areas served by satellite links.