Report fingers China for satellite hack

At least two US environment--monitoring satellites were interfered with four or more times in 2007 and 2008 through a ground station in Norway, and China?s military is the prime suspect, a draft report to the US Congress said.

The US-China Economic and Security Review Commission, which reported the interference, said the events had not actually been traced to China. It said it was citing them ?because the techniques appear consistent with authoritative Chinese military writings? that have advocated disabling satellite control facilities in any conflict.

Pinpointing responsibility for a cyberattack can be extremely difficult. Hackers typically mask their tracks by routing intrusions through computers on multiple continents and can make an attack appear to come from a third country.

The commission said its account was based largely on a May 12 US Air Force briefing for the 12--member commission, which was set up by Congress in 2000 to report on the national security implications of US-China trade. Its final report is scheduled to be sent to lawmakers on Nov. 16.

The satellites cited in the report are used for climate and terrain monitoring by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration and the US Geological Survey (USGS). A Landsat-7 Earth observation satellite, built by NASA for the USGS, experienced 12 or more minutes of interference in October 2007 and July 2008, the report said.

A NASA-managed Terra AM-1 Earth observation satellite was similarly interfered with for two minutes or more on June 20, 2008, and at least nine minutes on Oct. 22, 2008, it said.

NASA spokesman Trent Perrotto confirmed that NASA had spotted two ?suspicious events? with its Terra spacecraft in the summer and fall of 2008, but said no commands were successfully sent to the satellite and no data was captured.

NASA notified the US Department of Defense, which is responsible for investigating any attempted interference with satellite operations, Perrotto added.

The defense department would not comment on the alleged hacking, but said it was monitoring China?s development of ?counter-space? capabilities.

The department is increasing the resilience of US assets in space and improving ?the ability to operate in a degraded environment,? among other precautions, Pentagon spokesman Army Lieutenant Colonel James Gregory said.

Hackers appear to have worked through Svalbard Satellite Station, or SvalSat, in Spitsbergen, Norway, which routinely connects to the Internet to transfer data, the commission?s draft added.

Located about 1,200km from the North Pole, SvalSat is well-placed to communicate with satellites in polar orbit, the report said.

However, the company that owns the ground station said it saw no sign of the penetration reported by the commission.

?Our systems indicated nothing,? Kongsberg Satellite Services president Rolf Skatteboe said in Oslo. ?We do not understand where this is coming from.?

Commissioner Larry Wortzel, who is a retired US Army colonel and former military attache to China, said Beijing conducted numerous tests on space warfare systems in 2007 and 2008.

?I don?t think it is a wild analytical leap to suggest that these hacks could have been part of that matrix of testing,? he said in an e-mail.

The report did not spell out the nature of the interference, but said hackers ?achieved all steps required to command? the Terra AM-1 satellite without ever actually exercising that control.

Source: http://libertytimes.feedsportal.com/c/33098/f/535600/s/19a9a47b/l/0L0Staipeitimes0N0CNews0Cworld0Carchives0C20A110C10A0C30A0C20A0A35170A65/story01.htm

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