satellite

Episode 147: Forty Year Old GPS Satellites offer a Warning about securing the Internet of Things

A programming glitch in GPS satellite software grounded planes in China and other countries. But what does it tell us about the security of the Internet of Things? Bill Malik of Trend Micro joins us to discuss.

Surgical Robots The Latest To Fall To Whitehats

In-brief: Researchers from the University of Washington demonstrated attacks against “a slew” of exploitable vulnerabilities in a surgical robot they helped develop. They included attacks that could cause “jerky motion of robot’s arms” or render the surgical robot “motionless” and “almost unusable.”

Research Warns of Cyber-Physical Attacks Against Vessel Tracking System

Researchers at Trend Micro report that an analysis of a vessel tracking system that is mandated on most large sea vessels has found that it is vulnerable to a range of possible software- and radio-based attacks. The vulnerabilities could be exploited in ‘cyber-physical’ attacks against the Automated Identification System (AIS) that directed ships off course or confused officials by mis-reporting the actual location of vessels, the researchers found. Trend Micro researchers Marco Balduzzi and Kyle Wilhoit presented their research at the Annual Computer Security Applications Conference (ACSAC) in New Orleans this month. AIS is a global system for tracking the movement of vessels. It is intended to supplement marine radar and relies on ship, land and satellite-based systems to exchange data on ships’ position, course and speed and is used for everything from collision avoidance to security, ship-to-ship communications and weather forecasting.  AIS is required to be deployed on all passenger vessels and on international-voyaging ships […]

U.S. Weather Systems Victims of Cyber Attack

The Washington Post is reporting that hackers from China breached the network of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) in September, forcing cyber security teams to seal off data vital to disaster planning, aviation, shipping and scores of other crucial uses. The article cites sources within the government and Congress. The intrusion occurred in late September. However, NOAA officials gave no indication that they had a problem until Oct. 20, according to three people familiar with the hack and the subsequent reaction by NOAA, which includes the National Weather Service. According to the report, NOAA officials believe that actors based in China are responsible for the attack. The report also claims that efforts to respond to it resulted in an interruption in some key services, including NOAA’s National Ice Center Web Site, a partnership with the U.S. Navy and U.S. Coast Guard to monitor conditions for navigation. That two-day outage skewed the accuracy […]