Jamie Tarabay and Sarah Zheng
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Chinese analyst floats a plan to hack Starlink
Starlink, Elon Musk’s satellite service that provides internet access in more than 30 countries, is starting to make Chinese military analysts nervous, if a recent report is any indication.
In a paper published this spring by the Beijing Institute of Tracking and Telecommunications Technology, a researcher urges the Chinese military to track and monitor every satellite in the sprawling Starlink network.
The ubiquity of the satellites, their ability to provide internet service, and the potential for the US government to leverage the satellites in the event of a conflict with China is enough reason for Beijing to develop a means of targeting Starlink, wrote researcher Ren Yuanzhen.
“On the one hand, it can provide more stable and reliable communication capabilities for the combat units deployed by the US military around the world,” noted the paper, published in a peer-reviewed journal called Modern Defense Technology. “On the other hand, it also has the potential to provide high-definition pictures and even live video.”
Thus, it went on, Beijing should consider “a combination of soft and hard kill methods” in order to “make some Starlink satellites lose their functions and destroy the constellation’s operating system.”
Neither Ren nor the Institute responded to requests for comment. It remains unclear if the paper represents a view of the Chinese Communist Party or any active military officials. Space Exploration Technologies Corp., which operates the Starlink satellite service, didn’t respond to a request for comment.
“This is a national security issue for the Chinese, they’re looking at Taiwan, if something happens, this system could be important for the Defense Department,” said Michael Listner, an attorney and founder of the think-tank Space Law and Policy Solutions.
The work companies like SpaceX are doing in space within the private sector is a conundrum for authoritarian governments that typically have partial ownership of private enterprises in their own countries, which gives them oversight into technological developments in the industry. Along with identifying and tracking official satellites, commercial networks are now also in the mix.
“Starlink offers the US military resiliency,” Listner said. “You can hit our systems but we have backup capabilities.”
Cyber is a largely unexplored factor in space, a domain that is becoming increasingly militarized. “China is building military space capabilities rapidly, including sensing and communications systems, and numerous anti-satellite weapons,” said Gen. James Dickinson, the commander of US Space Command. He told a Senate committee hearing last year that space is a “war fighting domain” in which China “actively seeks space superiority through space and space attack systems.”
Still, the paper’s publication comes after satellite technology has played a role in Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
State-sponsored Russian hackers remotely disabled satellite modems from the telecommunications company Viasat in February, just hours before Russian troops entered Ukraine, according to US and UK officials. The incident took down internet service for thousands of Ukrainians, hobbling communication at a crucial moment. Russia has consistently denied launching such cyberattacks.
Starlink, which has provided service to Ukraine since the Russian invasion, has already been the subject of attempted interruptions and hacking attempts, SpaceX boss Elon Musk wrote on Twitter last month.
While there’s been no official word about potential Russian activity aimed at Starlink, the Institute of Tracking and Telecommunications paper acknowledges that the satellites would create “a huge challenge for our current situational awareness and traditional defense capabilities.”
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