A Hacked Military Satellite for $15,000

foreign here's the hook right now perhaps already sold but I don't currently have any indication of that there is a plausibly legitimate offer online selling access to a maxar Technology's military satellite the offer is visible on a prominent Russian hacking form for obvious reasons I won't actually be disclosing the name or address of the site in this video which is also available not just on the

dark net but on the clear net as well important distinction here much of what can be categorized as online criminal activity at least more serious instances of such activity takes place on the dark web through special access points however the clear net a more visible searchable and regulated area of the internet where things like YouTube and Facebook exist can also be used for nearly unbelievable amount

website about page quote maxar is a leading space technology and intelligence company we unlock the promise of space to help governments and businesses solve problems on Earth and Beyond end quote reading on one can discover that maxar self-asserts to have partnered with over 50 governments to monitor the Earth's surface and deliver Broadband communication they've existed for over 60 years and maintain custody of what's called a

constellation of Imaging satellites which can scan the Earth's surface gather high resolution images and provide sensitive data to their customers all in all maxar is an industry leader in proprietary government-serving satellite technology with a somewhat loose overview of what the company actually does a more important question looms overhead how do they relate to the current War truthfully the impact that maxar satellites have had on Modern

conflict zones can't really even be overstated it's a tremendous unknown where the only real claim would be that they are essential in multiple separate capacities but on the public side we do have an indication of just how integral the company has now become based on their surveillance and reporting of the war in Ukraine example seen here from The Wall Street Journal nearly every single major new

Syndicate publication or professional analyst in all of the West uses imagery from maxar Technologies in their process even further as of February 2023 maxar had received a 192 million dollar five-year contract awarded by the National geospatial Intelligence Agency supplying imagery to U.S Allied countries quote U.S allies will have on-demand access to high-resolution satellite imagery and analytics the company said they will also get maxar's enhanced 3D

immersive maps that combine satellite imagery with video to replicate Real World locations end quote in summary maxar Technologies is an integral part of the US Military Intelligence industry let's call it an integral part of the war in Ukraine and a developing private sector Authority on satellite surveillance they provide Operational Support in a digital age with a multitude of contracts including a separate 3.2 billion dollar deal

from the national reconnaissance office supplying satellite imagery to the US government for the next 10 plus years One Last Detail as of November 2022 reported by the universe space Tech maxar was beginning to Supply Mobile terminals also referred to as tactical terminals with quote a huge number of requests from government organizations end quote these terminals provide direct connectivity to their satellites and are being offered for

a variety of strategic purposes to a lot of different third parties so why does it matter well for complete context we need to look now at statements from Russia with regards to private sector satellites and Rules of Engagement also reported by universe space Tech just one month later quote Russia is ramping up efforts to take down starlink internet over Ukraine the story focuses on communication outages

at the beginning of the war but it doesn't stop there from the center for strategic and International Studies quote Russia threatens to Target commercial satellites on October 27 a senior Russian foreign Ministry official warned that commercial Satellites May become a legitimate Target it for retaliation commercial space systems like spacex's starlink communication satellites and maxar's Fleet of Imaging satellites are playing a highly visible and compelling role

in Ukraine's resistance to the Russian invasion end quote that's fairly blunt very straightforward and indicates the current level of scrutiny that private sector satellite operators are under see Russia has hacked satellites before most notably an American company called ViaSat just slightly before the initial Invasion knocking out enemy communication can have a wide range of strategic impacts but the point here is to demonstrate that satellite hacking

is was and will always be a legitimate danger information on this subject was sourced from multiple Outlets primary among them a publication called kaisernet which holds a conference on connected battlefields and digital infrastructure speaker David E tremper the director for electronic warfare supporting the platforms and weapons portfolio manager in the office of the under secretary of defense for Acquisitions and sustainment which is an incredibly long

job title by the way anyway speaker David E tremper discussed the implica locations of these new Battle Tactics if you will also calling out that private sector companies like starlink are quicker on their feet when compared to government counterparts showcasing the need for agility and a rapidly evolving threat landscape and also that's good to hear private companies being effective at their job is what we want

in this economy in essence we know that Russia has and will continue to Target commercial satellites we know that maxar technology now provides billions of dollars worth of services to dozens of United States allies with a quote huge number of mobile terminal requests active at the moment and we know that hacking satellites is very possible how do we know that last bit well it's actually pretty

simple for starters the industry has incredibly lacks standards on security reported by via satellite in 2019 written by Sean Waterman and referencing a statement by Harrison Cottle the founder of orbital security Alliance quote the question everyone has been asking here and they're asking it at other space industry conferences I've attended is what do we need to do to secure our space assets later continuing the state

of cyber security from a vendor perspective is pretty broken right now there's a lot of money that's going into the sector and it's following a traditional Silicon Valley venture capital model of let's bet on a lot of different ideas and see what comes out best when one fails there's another one right behind it end quote to put it bluntly a shot down approach to satellite cyber

security is not the same as an innovation push to develop a new smartphone application where you order food online a huge number of improperly planned and executed ideas in this Arena only to then sync resources into the most successful version alone works fine in particular Industries but for a multi-billion dollar satellite surveillance industry where the consequences of a mistake are Amplified exponentially well maybe there should

be some actual standards regardless the current state of the industry isn't even where the historical context stops because when evaluating the current maxar Technology's predicament we need to remember something else as well it's happened before see as far back as 2008 hackers successfully interfered with not one one but two U.S government satellites but they didn't just interfere that's an incredibly sanitized way of putting it likely

meant to downplay the situation and the severity they infiltrated and according to Bloomberg businessweek at the time took full command and control thankfully no catastrophic commands were issued during the few minutes where hackers appeared to have total command and control of the satellite but we need to remember what that level of control actually means for surveillance satellites it means that they can take pictures of whatever

they want they can compromise Security in a horrifying way if that satellite happens to be part of an active conflict Zone but they can also if they acquire access to satellite thrusters exert physical control according to a piece written in the science section of Delta the University of delft quote if the propellants are used up the satellite can only leave space naturally through air resistance in

this case the satellite would gradually lose energy and be pushed into lower altitudes and ideally will ultimately burn up end quote well in reference to our existing example where hackers gained complete Command and control role of two U.S satellites in 2008 we need to understand a key factor one of the satellites that was compromised known as Terra am1 still had plenty of propellant at the time

and was only decommissioned thereby burning out the last of its propulsion capabilities in 2020 according to NASA 12 years prior with command and control level access attackers could have theoretically dropped the satellite out of orbit on a whim wherever they wanted to given enough time thereby destroying its capabilities entirely or even impacting Earth at a strategic location since the trajectory could be modified by their propulsion

mechanisms with the right triangulation and math and would not actually be out of control with decreasing speed as per our prior example projecting such a scenario forward means catastrophic consequences if a threat actor were to be so inclined and have such access let's look at one more relevant piece of context before connecting everything back together hacking a satellite rather than some far-off Hollywood style concept which

I know some people view it to be is an active reality and for absolute proof of this irrefutable proof of this look no further than hack a set hackasat is basically a capture the flag style cyber security game where teams compete to accomplish a particular Mission such as hacking controlling or reprogramming an active satellite in this case with both offensive and defensive components it's a thrilling

competition to watch actually but the message here is that satellites can absolutely be hacked with a nearly insurmountable number of unique ways to do so given the complexity of the software involved so far hakasat has had three separate competitions leading to an eventual fourth round with a real satellite called moonshot I believe in space that will be used for training purposes they have up till now

used software environment simulations smaller scale hardware simulations and other methods of conducting the games here on Earth but soon there will be a gamified version of hacking a real satellite available as a team-based competition satellite hacks are real they exist here and now and they're not going anywhere to really drive home my point right now the first time that Defcon actually tested U.S military technology it

was against an F-16 up till that point the US military had not allowed access to their actual systems hardly at all but in the very first year that they did which occurred in 2019 the attacks were complete success a veritable Treasure Trove of security holes were discovered including exploits vulnerabilities and even catastrophic shutdown options with a wide range of damaging effects beyond the aircraft itself in

a world where military technology is widely considered to be the Pinnacle of cyber security in the minds of the general public this was an interesting Revelation why am I saying all this well the answer is simple context very recently on a well-established Russian hacking Forum which I will not be naming publicly a post was made by a user whose account seems to have been created initially

in 2021 offering to sell access to a maxar Technologies Imaging satellite for fifteen thousand dollars quote hello Community good evening today I'm putting my access to satellite for sale it is run by Maxwell Technologies and you will be able to see military and strategic position country eligible to use the satellite USA price fifteen thousand dollars USD escrow accepted plus if you need proof you can pm

here end quote the use of escrow here and an offer to prove legitimacy lends Credence to the idea that this may in fact be a real offering looking back through this user's prior postings we can see that they have attempted to sell access to a slew of at T accounts they've had some claimed level of access to a service called Apollo which appears to have been

legitimate even an alleged 93 000 personal IDs from a Brazilian Pharma infiltration and the Forum itself without mincing words here at all is absolutely an authentic place where these kinds of broker deals actually do occur example there are millions of Redline Steeler logs available on this forum which are the primary method of stealing YouTube and Google accounts the shadow economy I recently discussed in a prior

video well some of the deals where the bigger accounts get bought and sold occur on forums just like this one so I know that there is a level of legitimacy here that's not to be trifled with lightly to even gain access you need to be individually approved by an administrator and I won't talk too deeply about what happened and how we eventually got in but it

wasn't exactly an easy process there is a commonly used xmpp server that serves as a standard platform to initiate conversations about possible deals and the Forum was previously known under a different name rebranded in and around 2017-2018 but the point of it all is this with additional context knowing that satellites can be have been and will be hacked again do we believe that this particular offering

is legitimate is there access to a military satellite on sale right now perhaps already sold is one of maxar Technology's Imaging platforms their state-of-the-art multinational multi-billion dollar Imaging platforms laid bare for the World by a Russian hacker and available for just fifteen thousand dollars or is it all a kind of hoax if I were a betting man based on context and verification my God tells me

it's real it's real and we will never hear about it again as a result but in the end I really don't have a clue that's the God's honest truth and I will not be messaging anyone individually on that Forum in order to check for whatever government agent ends up watching this because I know that a couple government people watch my content now or at least have

watched it in the past I didn't cross any lines I didn't download a single thing or look beyond my purview I just looked at this story through an objective lens with all of that additional context what do all of you think is it real is it a hoax is it plausible impossible or even likely where do you fall and why let me know in the comment

section that's my excuse to spike engagement by getting you guys to talk in my comment section go ahead have a discussion for those curious here are some of my final thoughts NASA once estimated the odds of a falling satellite causing harm in air quotes there in a particular case this was one instance to be one in 2467 which may seem incredibly low but is it to

compare here are some additional statistics let's call them accidental gun deaths according to statista present a one in 7944 chance of death the probability of a particular 2023 falling satellite causing harm by NASA's own standards was over three times higher than the probability of death by accidental gun discharge and over five times as likely as death by electrocution radiation extreme temperatures also known as exposure and

pressure combined we are launching tens of thousands of new satellites now at increasing sizes and payloads more every day private sector is getting on board huge companies are doing this on an industrial scale and there is a well-documented emphasis on space as a current Frontier of War hell we know for a fact that satellite this is an indisputable fact that Satellites with propellant reserves and movement

capabilities have been compromised in the past with total command and control as far back as 2008 while modern security standards for the industry are discussed with concern by experts in the field due to recklessness of Silicon Valley investment tactics my conclusions the post has a very legitimate chance of being real but even if it's not it will be satellites will be compromised nation states will Target

private sector companies with malware digital infiltration Etc and we as end users will be carried down the river if you will by a current that we simply cannot control my strategy because yeah that's a little bit it's a little bit doomish and you can't do anything about it and oh whatever people call me a fear Monger now but I'm I'm really not I just talk about

things that are interesting to me my strategy kick back and watch hackasat because I didn't even know that that competition existed and now I'm hooked on it it's an incredible display of Ingenuity problem solving and Team Dynamics leaving me frankly astounded that the official competition videos here on YouTube only have a couple hundred views it's really cool stuff I mean this should be more interesting than

a lot of major sports out there and I'll link a full playlist in the description down below for people who want to check it out but yeah that's my strategy I found that baffling that's a really interesting thing and I don't understand why more people don't engage with it that's it if you want to support the channel there are links down below one of the main

ones is a curated list of cyber security products Services deals and programs for individual people some partnered some not but the list will be an evolving project that seeks to benefit both the community and the Channel Wherever possible it's a work in progress feedback is very much appreciated but I'll cut it there and stop rambling as always thank you all for watching and have a nice

night [Music] thank you [Music]