Silent Subversion: Sensor Spoofing Attacks via Supply Chain Implants in Satellite Systems

• URL: http://arxiv.org/abs/2603.10388v1
• Date: Wed, 11 Mar 2026 04:09:23 GMT
• Title: Silent Subversion: Sensor Spoofing Attacks via Supply Chain Implants in Satellite Systems
• Abstract summary: Spoofing attacks are among the most destructive cyber threats to terrestrial systems.<n>They become even more dangerous in space, where satellites cannot be easily serviced.<n>This paper presents an end-to-end demonstration of an internal satellite spoofing attack delivered through a compromised vendor-supplied component.
• Score: 0.764671395172401
• License: http://arxiv.org/licenses/nonexclusive-distrib/1.0/
• Abstract: Spoofing attacks are among the most destructive cyber threats to terrestrial systems, and they become even more dangerous in space, where satellites cannot be easily serviced, and operators depend on accurate telemetry to ensure mission success. When telemetry is compromised, entire spaceborne missions are placed at risk. Prior work on spoofing has largely focused on attacks from Earth, such as injecting falsified uplinks or overpowering downlinks with stronger radios. In contrast, onboard spoofing originating from within the satellite itself remains an underexplored and underanalyzed threat. This vector is particularly concerning given that modern satellites, especially small satellites, rely on modular architectures and globalized supply chains that reduce cost and accelerate development but also introduce hidden risks. This paper presents an end-to-end demonstration of an internal satellite spoofing attack delivered through a compromised vendor-supplied component implemented in NASA's NOS3 simulation environment. Our rogue Core Flight Software application passed integration and generated packets in the correct format and cadence that the COSMOS ground station accepted as legitimate. By undermining both onboard estimators and ground operator views, the attack directly threatens mission integrity and availability, as corrupted telemetry can bias navigation, conceal subsystem failures, and mislead operators into executing harmful maneuvers. These results expose component-level telemetry spoofing as an overlooked supply-chain vector distinct from jamming or external signal injection. We conclude by discussing practical countermeasures-including authenticated telemetry, component attestation, provenance tracking, and lightweight runtime monitoring-and highlight the trade-offs required to secure resource-constrained small satellites.

Related papers

• AmbSentry: Mitigating Sensing Eavesdropping in ISAC Systems by Harnessing Ambient IoT Devices [60.083979780396014]
  Integrated sensing and communication (ISAC) has emerged as a pivotal paradigm for 6G networks.<n>This paper proposes AmbSentry, an ISAC system that prevents the leakage of sensing information to sensing eavesdroppers.
  arXiv  Detail & Related papers  (2026-08-12T08:42:05Z)
• Multi-Agent-Driven Cognitive Secure Communications in Satellite-Terrestrial Networks [58.70163955407538]
  Malicious eavesdroppers pose a serious threat to private information via satellite-terrestrial networks (STNs)<n>We propose a cognitive secure communication framework driven by multiple agents that coordinates spectrum scheduling and protection through real-time sensing.<n>We exploit generative adversarial networks to produce adversarial matrices, and employ learning-aided power control to set real and adversarial signal powers for protection layer.
  arXiv  Detail & Related papers  (2026-01-06T10:30:41Z)
• Satellite Cybersecurity Across Orbital Altitudes: Analyzing Ground-Based Threats to LEO, MEO, and GEO [2.1130318406254074]
  This paper presents a comparative analysis of satellite cybersecurity across LEO, Medium Earth Orbit (MEO), and Geostationary Earth Orbit (GEO) regimes.<n>By synthesizing data from 60 publicly documented security incidents with key vulnerability, we characterize how orbital altitude dictates attack feasibility and impact.<n>We argue that unmitigated cyber vulnerabilities accelerate hardware obsolescence and debris accumulation, undermining efforts toward carbon-neutral space operations.
  arXiv  Detail & Related papers  (2025-12-23T19:56:09Z)
• OS-Sentinel: Towards Safety-Enhanced Mobile GUI Agents via Hybrid Validation in Realistic Workflows [77.95511352806261]
  Computer-using agents powered by Vision-Language Models (VLMs) have demonstrated human-like capabilities in operating digital environments like mobile platforms.<n>We propose OS-Sentinel, a novel hybrid safety detection framework that combines a Formal Verifier for detecting explicit system-level violations with a Contextual Judge for assessing contextual risks and agent actions.
  arXiv  Detail & Related papers  (2025-10-28T13:22:39Z)
• SpyChain: Multi-Vector Supply Chain Attacks on Small Satellite Systems [0.6524460254566903]
  Small satellites are integral to scientific, commercial, and defense missions, but reliance on commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) hardware broadens their attack surface.<n>We present SpyChain, the first end-to-end design and implementation of independent and colluding hardware supply chain threats targeting small satellites.<n>Using NASA's satellite simulation (NOS3), we demonstrate that SpyChain can evade testing, exfiltrate telemetry, disrupt operations, and launch Denial of Service (DoS) attacks.
  arXiv  Detail & Related papers  (2025-10-08T00:21:40Z)
• ASTREA: Introducing Agentic Intelligence for Orbital Thermal Autonomy [51.56484100374058]
  ASTREA is the first agentic system executed on flight-heritage hardware for autonomous spacecraft operations.<n>We integrate a resource-constrained Large Language Model (LLM) agent with a reinforcement learning controller in an asynchronous architecture tailored for space-qualified platforms.
  arXiv  Detail & Related papers  (2025-09-16T08:52:13Z)
• Low-altitude UAV Friendly-Jamming for Satellite-Maritime Communications via Generative AI-enabled Deep Reinforcement Learning [72.23178920029957]
  This paper presents a satellite-maritime communication system assisted by low-altitude unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) friendly-jamming.<n>We formulate a secure satellite-maritime communication multi-objective optimization problem (SSMCMOP)<n>In order to solve the dynamic and long-term optimization problem, we reformulate it into a Markov decision process.<n>We then propose a transformer-enhanced soft actor-critic (TransSAC) algorithm, which is a generative artificial intelligence-enabled deep reinforcement learning approach.
  arXiv  Detail & Related papers  (2025-01-26T10:13:51Z)
• Detection of Aerial Spoofing Attacks to LEO Satellite Systems via Deep Learning [3.5502600490147196]
  We propose a new spoofing detection technique for LEO satellite constellation systems, applying anomaly detection on the received PHY signal via autoencoders.<n>We validate our solution through an extensive measurement campaign involving the deployment of an actual spoofer installed on a drone.<n>Our results demonstrate that the proposed technique can reliably detect spoofing attacks launched at different altitudes, while state-of-the-art competing approaches simply fail.
  arXiv  Detail & Related papers  (2024-12-20T15:56:09Z)
• Infiltrating the Sky: Data Delay and Overflow Attacks in Earth Observation Constellations [13.197457702744991]
  Low Earth Orbit (LEO) Earth Observation (EO) satellites have changed the way we monitor Earth. EO satellites have very limited downlink communication capability, limited by transmission bandwidth, number and location of ground stations, and small transmission windows due to high velocity satellite movement. In this paper, we investigate a new attack surface exposed by resource competition in EO constellations, targeting the delay or drop of Earth monitoring data using legitimate EO services.
  arXiv  Detail & Related papers  (2024-09-02T02:20:13Z)
• Evaluating the Security of Satellite Systems [24.312198733476063]
  This paper presents a comprehensive taxonomy of adversarial tactics, techniques, and procedures explicitly targeting satellites. We examine the space ecosystem including the ground, space, Communication, and user segments, highlighting their architectures, functions, and vulnerabilities. We propose a novel extension of the MITRE ATT&CK framework to categorize satellite attack techniques across the adversary lifecycle from reconnaissance to impact.
  arXiv  Detail & Related papers  (2023-12-03T09:38:28Z)
• Integrating LEO Satellite and UAV Relaying via Reinforcement Learning for Non-Terrestrial Networks [51.05735925326235]
  A mega-constellation of low-earth orbit (LEO) satellites has the potential to enable long-range communication with low latency. We study the problem of forwarding packets between two faraway ground terminals, through an LEO satellite selected from an orbiting constellation. To maximize the end-to-end data rate, the satellite association and HAP location should be optimized. We tackle this problem using deep reinforcement learning (DRL) with a novel action dimension reduction technique.
  arXiv  Detail & Related papers  (2020-05-26T05:39:27Z)

This list is automatically generated from the titles and abstracts of the papers in this site.

This site does not guarantee the quality of this site (including all information) and is not responsible for any consequences.