Geosynchronous satellites, which send data to the Internet and phones in areas that are out of reach of regular cables, are the broadcast of sensitive data that can interfere with anyone with $ 600 equipment, a team of researchers found.
A team of six academics from the University of Maryland and University of California stated in a paper Na -Published On Monday that a “surprisingly huge amount of sensitive traffic” was broadcasting that was not discounted throughout the satellite network in Plaintext.
This includes the keys of cellular, citizen’s SMS and even traffic for military systems and critical infrastructure.
Researchers said they found all of this by setting up a satellite-grade satellite dish on the roof of a university building in San Diego and observing 39 geosynchronous satellite.
“This data can be observed by anyone with a few hundred grade-consumer hardware dollars,” the researchers Says.
“There are thousands of geostationary satellite transponder worldwide, and data from a single transponder can be seen from an area of as large as 40% of the ground surface.”
How to protect yourself from prying eyes
Because there is no way to determine if the providers are Data trafficResearchers recommend that users make caution by using services such as VPN, which has hid IP addresses and data data.
While messaging and voice communications should be carried out by end-to-end already -encrypt apps such as signal or Telegram, which automatically protects the user’s privacy, satellite communication providers can also offer a pencryption as an added feature in their services.
“Encryption should be used in each layer as a defense-in deep protection against individual failures. Treat encryption as mandatory, not an ADD,” the researchers said.
Some providers have fixed the issue
During the study, the researchers informed some of the bigger providers on the issue, saying that steps to address the problem.
“There is no one stakeholder responsible for the refinement of satellite communications,” they said.
“Each time we discovered sensitive information in our data, we went through great efforts to determine the responsible party, establish a relationship, and reveal the weakness.”
After returning the networks used by T-Mobile, Walmart, and KPU, researchers said they have proven that an arrangement has been deployed, but also warned that they are preventing information about other affected systems because disclosure is still ongoing.
Pagsencrypting is often too expensive
A major cause of Data traffic is not already -Senencrypted is due to the overhead costs associated with it, along with some distant, off-grid recipients who cannot afford hardware and licenses fees, according to researchers.
At the same time, being a pennyption can be difficult to troubleshooting network issues and to overthrow the reliability of emergency services. Others do not know the risk or underestimate the risk and ease of data blocking.
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“While significant attention to academic and activists is put into ensuring the almost universal use of discryption for modern web browsers, there has been less visibility and attention paid in communications on the satellite network,” the researchers said.
The study focuses on the geosynchronous equatorial orbit (GEO) satellite system, which remains in fixed positions. It does not investigate the low land orbit systems, such as Elon Musk’s StarlinkBecause it will require more complex hardware reception.
“Our understanding is that these links are on Sencrypt, but we have not freely proven them.”
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