Security News > 2022 > August > Starlink satellite dish cracked on stage at Black Hat

A security researcher has shown how to, with physical access at least, fully take over a Starlink satellite terminal using a homemade modchip.

Lennert Wouters, a researcher at the KU Leuven University in Belgium, walked through his methodology during a talk at Black Hat in Las Vegas this week.

After successfully performing the side-channel attack in the university's lab, Wouters notified the SpaceX product security team that he had achieved root-level access on the terminal, and said they offered him an easier way in: SSH access involving a Yubikey for authentication.

So he built a modchip, replacing the lab equipment with cheap off-the-shelf components, and used the homemade system to glitch the bootloader and obtain root access on the Starlink user terminal.

In Wouters' case, he used the security weakness to send a tweet through the rooted Starlink user terminal announcing his Black Hat talk.

"From a security standpoint, this is a well designed product," Wouters said on stage.

News URL

https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2022/08/12/starlink_terminal_hack_black_hat/