This is very weird, what possible benefit would that be to going after observatories?
this post was submitted on 25 Aug 2023
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Honestly the only thing I can think of is the competition recently to hack a satellite, maybe has drawn the ire of some script kids, or rather interest. [1][2][3] I LOT of educational and research stuff is quite open, and often very resistant to change as they value access/transmissibility over security in many cases where theres no real grounds (ie: its not national secrets etc). Some of these datasets are quite large.
Even still basic things like firewalls, key based access etc should be setupo. Heck if its a multi-million dollar instrument airgapping is probably worth its time. But i dunno. Just conjecture on my part.
The competition definately brought some attention [4]
- [1] https://www.newsweek.com/eight-teams-hackers-will-compete-breach-us-satellite-space-1808270
- [2] https://www.afrl.af.mil/News/Article-Display/Article/3341747/hack-a-sat-competition-highlights-on-orbit-hacking/
- [3] https://www.space.com/satellite-hacking-hack-a-sat-competition-winners
- [4] https://www.defenseone.com/threats/2023/08/national-intelligence-office-issues-cyber-warning-government-and-commercial-satellites/389671/
It's aliens. There is no other sensible explanation.
Officials immediately safed the Gemini North telescope and stowed the massive instrument.
While it's good to be cautious, it's wild that hardware would be exposed to external actors in any way.