Infiltrating the Sky: Data Delay and Overflow Attacks in Earth Observation Constellations

TL;DR

This paper uncovers new security vulnerabilities in Earth Observation satellite constellations, where resource competition can be exploited to delay or drop critical data, highlighting the need for robust defenses.

Contribution

It introduces novel delay and overflow attack strategies targeting EO satellite data transmission, with algorithms and analysis demonstrating their feasibility in realistic scenarios.

Findings

Attacks can significantly delay or drop data in EO constellations.

Attack success depends on satellite dynamics and communication scheduling.

Simulations confirm practical feasibility of proposed attacks.

Abstract

Low Earth Orbit (LEO) Earth Observation (EO) satellites have changed the way we monitor Earth. Acting like moving cameras, EO satellites are formed in constellations with different missions and priorities, and capture vast data that needs to be transmitted to the ground for processing. However, 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. To optimize resource utilization, EO constellations are expected to share communication spectrum and ground stations for maximum communication efficiency. 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. Specifically, an attacker can inject high-priority requests to temporarily preempt low-priority data transmission windows. Furthermore, we show that by utilizing predictable satellite dynamics, an attacker can intelligently target critical data from low-priority satellites, either delaying its delivery or irreversibly dropping the data. We formulate two attacks, the data delay attack and the data overflow attack, design algorithms to assist attackers in devising attack strategies, and analyze their feasibility or optimality in typical scenarios. We then conduct trace-driven simulations using real-world satellite images and orbit data to evaluate the success probability of launching these attacks under realistic satellite communication settings. We also discuss possible defenses against these attacks.