Presented at
DEF CON 32 (2024),
Aug. 10, 2024, 4:30 p.m.
(45 minutes).
VSAT satellite communication systems are widely used to provide two-way data and voice communications to remote areas, including maritime environments, crisis regions, and other locations where terrestrial communication infrastructure is limited or unavailable. In this presentation, we report on our security findings from our reverse-engineering efforts to exploit VSAT satellite modems from the Earth. We will focus on the Newtec MDM2200 from iDirect as an example. First, we explain how we reverse-engineered the software stack running on the modem device to find 0-day vulnerabilities. Then, we show how we reverse-engineered the network stack to devise attacks that can be launched by injecting wireless signals through the antenna dish of a VSAT terminal. Finally, we demonstrate our software-defined radio end-to-end attacks to inject bogus firmware updates and to gain a remote root shell access on the modem. To the best of knowledge, this represents the first successful demonstration of signal injection attacks on VSAT modems using software-defined radios from the Earth, while previous attacks on VSAT systems such as the ViaSat hack in 2022 were based on exploiting the operator’s network through Internet VPN connections. Our work therefore enlarges significantly the attack surface of VSAT systems.
Our presentation at DEF CON is part of a project that has three parts.
In the first part, we focus on the inherent security issues in current VSAT system practices. This work will be appear in May at ACM WiSec 2024.
VSAsTer: Uncovering Inherent Security Issues in Current VSAT System Practices, Johannes Willbold, Moritz Schloegel, Robin Bisping, Martin Strohmeier, Thorsten Holz, Vincent Lenders, 17th ACM Conference on Security and Privacy in Wireless and Mobile Networks (WiSec), Seoul, Korea, May 2024.
The second part deals with the systematic evaluation of wireless signal injection attacks using a software-defined radio. This work will appear in August at Usenix Security 2024:
Wireless Signal Injection Attacks on VSAT Satellite Modems, Robin Bisping, Johannes Willbold, Martin Strohmeier, and Vincent Lenders, 33rd USENIX Security Symposium (USENIX Security), Philadelphia PA, USA, August 2024.
The third part of the project deals with reverse-engineering of the software and network stack of satellite modems and the development of exploits that can be injected over the air through the antenna dish of a VSAT terminal from the ground. This part shall be presented at DEF CON this year.
Presenters:
-
Robin Bisping
- Security Engineer at Cyber-Defence Campus
Robin Bisping is a security engineer and former student of ETH Zurich and the Cyber-Defence Campus, where his research focused on the security of wireless networks and satellite communication systems.
-
Johannes Willbold
- PhD Student at Ruhr University Bochum
Johannes Willbold is a PhD student at the Ruhr University Bochum and researches the software security of space and satellite systems. In 2023, he published at the IEEE S&P, and presented on venues, including Black Hat US, REcon and TyphoonCon. He organizes the yearly SpaceSec workshop (co-located with NDSS) and participated in the Hack-a-Sat 2 & 4 finals.
-
Vincent Lenders
- Cybersecurity Researcher and Head at Cyber-Defence Campus
Vincent Lenders is a cybersecurity researcher from Switzerland where he acts as the Head of the Cyber-Defence Campus. He has a Master and PhD degree from ETH Zurich in electrical engineering. He has over 15 years of practical experience in cybersecurity with a strong focus on the security of wireless networks. He is the co-founder of the OpenSky Network and has published over 150 scientific papers and two books, and presents regularly at cybersecurity conferences including Usenix Secuirty, DEFCON, IEEE S&P, NDSS, ACM CCS.
Similar Presentations: