The Trump administration expects to release new information related to cybersecurity measures for space companies and their supply chains in the next two weeks, an official said March 9.
Supply chain cyber hygiene in particular takes up about 60 percent of discussions at the White House related to space cybersecurity, said Mir H. Sadat, director of critical enablers at the National Space Council, during a Monday panel meeting at Via Satellite’s annual SATELLITE show in Washington, D.C. Via Satellite is a sister publication to Defense Daily.
He noted that efforts are underway to ensure space acquisition processes become more streamlined to ensure the government takes advantage of new technological innovations such as small satellites.
“That is a major piece,” he said. “If we’re going to go and start relying on small satellites… [we need to] make sure these things don’t get hacked, don’t get utilized in different ways by our competitors.”
The Defense Innovation Unit (DIU) in Silicon Valley is taking the lead on developing cyber hygiene efforts, Sadat said. “You will probably see something rolling out in the next couple of weeks on cybersecurity in space.”
Erik Daehler, the director of commercial business development at Lockheed Martin Space [LMT], said during the panel that prime contractors such as his company have to ensure they understand the cyber hygiene of the companies they work with, particularly in the space domain.
“We certainly are interested in all aspects of our hybrid architecture,” he said, noting that architecture will involve a variety of solutions of various shapes and sizes operating in different orbits.
“You have to understand that it’s not just one solution versus another,” he said. “And you have to be able to trust … what’s in each node that you operate through the system. … You have to understand the cyber protection and cyber resilience for each of the assets, you have to understand the pedigree of a hardware.”
Much like our smartphones have regular updates patched in to ensure resiliency and cyber protections are up to date, satellites will need to undergo the same processes to stay cyber-hardened, Daehler said.