Skip to main content

TV Equipment Used To Eavesdrop On Sensitive Satellite Communications


With just £270 ($300) of home television equipment an Oxford University-based security researcher caught terabytes of real-world satellite traffic including sensitive information from “some of the world’s largest organizations.”

The news comes as the number of satellites in the orbit is said to have an increment from around 2,000 today to more than 15,000 by 2030. James Pavur, a Rhodes Scholar and DPhil student at Oxford will detail the attack in a session at the Black Hat security conference toward the beginning of August.

Alongside it Pavur will demonstrate that, "under the right conditions" attackers can easily hijack active meetings by means of the satellite link, a session overview revealed.

While full details of the attack won't be uncovered until the Black Hat conference, a 2019 conference paper published by Pavur gives a 'sneak peek' into a small part of the challenges of security in the satellite communications space.

It seems to all come down into the absence of encryption-in-transit for satellite-based broadband communications.

The May 2019 paper (“Secrets in the Sky: On Privacy and Infrastructure Security in DVB-S Satellite Broadband“) notes: “Satellite transmissions cover vast distances and are subject to speed-of-light latency effects and packet loss which can impair the function of encryption schemes designed for high-reliability terrestrial environments (e.g. by requiring re-transmission of corrupted key materials). Moreover, satellites themselves are limited in terms of computing capabilities, and any on-board cryptographic operation risks trading off with other mission functionality.”

It additionally uncovers how a small portion of the eavesdropping in was led utilizing a “75 cm, flat-panel satellite receiver dish and a TBS-6983 DVB-S receiver….configured to receive Ku-band transmissions between 10,700 MHz and 12,750 MHz”

Pavur grabbed sensitive communications using tools costing less than $300, including a Selfsat H30D Satellite Dish, a TBS 6983 Satellite PCI-E, and a three-meter coaxial cable.

Pavur even focuses on the Digital Video Broadcasting-Satellite (DVB-S) and DVB-S rendition 2 protocols, which transmit information in MPEG-TS format. The paper includes: "A collection of Python utilities… was used to analyze each of these transponders for signs of DVB-based internet transmissions.”

The 2018 experiment takes note of that through manual review of the intercepted traffic, the security researchers distinguished "[traffic] flows associated with electrical power generation facilities”

“Vulnerable systems administration pages and FTP servers were publicly routable from the open internet. This means that an attacker could sniff a session token from a satellite connection, open a web browser, and log in to the plant’s control panel…”

Alongside further details on the attack, Pavur will at Black Hat present an “open-source tool which individual customers can use to encrypt their traffic without requiring ISP involvement.”




source https://www.ehackingnews.com/2020/05/tv-equipment-used-to-eavesdrop-on.html
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Betting and Gambling Websites under Cyberattack from Chinese Hackers

Since last year's summers, Chinese hackers have been targeting South Asian companies that own online gambling and betting websites. The gambling companies in South Asia have confirmed the hacks, whereas rumors of cyberattacks on betting websites have also emerged from Europe, and the Middle East, however, the rumors are yet to confirm, says the reports of cybersecurity group Trend Micro and Talent-Jump. Cybersecurity experts claim that no money was stolen in these hacks against the gambling websites. However, hackers have stolen source codes and databases. The motive of the attack was not a cybercrime, but rather espionage intended attack to gain intelligence. According to the experts, a group named ' DRBControl ' is responsible for the cyberattack. According to the reports of Trend Micro, the hacking techniques used in this particular cyberattack incident is similar to methods done by Emissary Panda and Winnti. All of these hacking groups are from China that has launc...
5 comments
Read more

Github Escapes from Octopus Malware that Affected its 26 Software Projects

Github, a platform where every malicious software report is equally different in its place, manages to escape from a malware threat.  Github, an organization that united the world's largest community of coders and software developers, revealed that hackers exploited an open-source platform on its website to distribute malware. The hackers used a unique hacking tool that enabled backdoors in each software project, which the hackers used to infiltrate the software systems. "While we have seen many cases where the software supply chain was compromised by hijacking developer credentials or typosquatting popular package names, a malware that abuses the build process and its resulting artifacts to spread is both interesting and concerning for multiple reasons," said Github on its security blog. Fortunately, the hackers attempt to exploit the open-source platform was unsuccessful. Still, if it were, on the contrary, hackers could've secured a position in the softwares, ...
Post a Comment
Read more

Maze Ransomware Operators Leaked 2GB of Financial Data from Bank of Costa Rica (BCR)

Bank of Costa Rica (BCR) has been receiving threats from the threat actors behind Maze ransomware who have stolen credit card details from the bank, the ransomware gang started publishing the encrypted financial details this week. The Banco de Costa Rica is one of the strongest state-owned commercial banks operated in Costa Rica, starting from humble origins of mainly being a private commercial bank, it expanded to become a currency issuer and one of the most renowned baking firms in Central America contributing largely in the financial development of the nation. The hacker group behind the data leak have demanded a ransom from Banco de Costa Rica at various occasions, however, to their dismay they observed a lack of seriousness in the way the bank dealt with these previous leaks and it served as a primary reason that motivated the latest data leak, according to an interview with Maze ransomware operators. As per the claims made by the attackers, Banco de Costa Rica's netw...
Post a Comment
Read more