The Office of the National Cyber Director (ONCD) and the National Space Council convened government and industry leaders this week to discuss bolstering cybersecurity in the space systems ecosystem, and the White House tasked several Federal agencies with new marching orders to start pushing toward that goal.
According to a March 28 press release, the Space Forum was designed to facilitate robust discussion at the executive level and drive action to motivate critical cybersecurity investments across the U.S. space industry.
Public and private sector space actors – including stakeholders representing the diversity of the space ecosystem – must work together to proactively address cybersecurity challenges, the White House said.
As part of the new to-do list, Federal agencies will oversee several actions to bolster cybersecurity in the space industry:
- ONCD will convene workshops to understand industry perspectives on current policy for cybersecurity of space systems, and gaps requiring more specific guidance and tangible next steps that the White House could build upon;
- The Department of Commerce will hold a Space Cybersecurity Symposium with participation from a broad range of public and private space and cybersecurity stakeholders; and
- This fiscal year, the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) will finalize its report, “Introduction to Cybersecurity for Commercial Satellite Operations,” providing a method for applying the NIST Cybersecurity Framework to commercial space activities and a set of cybersecurity outcomes, requirements, and suggested controls.
Top Federal cyber leaders from NASA, the National Security Council, the U.S. Space Force, and many other agencies met with ONCD’s Acting Director Kemba Walden and the National Space Council’ Executive Secretary Chirag Parikh on March 28 for a cyber threat briefing and a roundtable discussion on cybersecurity.
According to the White House, the Federal officials emphasized the need to partner closely with the private sector to ensure the resiliency of the U.S. space ecosystem against cyber threats.
Industry participants included reps from satellite communications, launch, imagery, cloud and data, cross-functional defense systems and services, and venture capital elements of the space industry.
“All participants emphasized the importance and urgency of executive-level attention on shoring up the resilience of U.S. space systems through increased investments in cybersecurity,” the White House said.
Low Earth Orbit (LEO) satellites are being launched at an amazing rate. The entire sector is supported by some of the most notable people in the global hierarchy of wealth. StarLink is Elon Musk, Project Kuiper is Jeff Bezos and OneWeb has Richard Branson as an investor. Also, China is launching its own LEO satellite grid as well.
The whole purpose of LEO satellites is to bring the internet to everyone on earth. Currently, internet service is limited by ground installations like network towers and satellite receivers. Obviously, internet Service Providers are limited in completing the grid as there are parts of the world that are low population, geopolitically hard to reach or simply not cost effective.
At BLAKFX, we are 100% supportive of LEO satellite expansion and are extremely well versed in the sector. The LEO satellite firms know that the grid by itself does nothing at all to protect your firm or nations data. No nations national security will be able to rely on LEO grids until they are completely secure. Users will not trust the networks until the issue is addressed.
In Math We Trust
Actually, one of the greatest threats to LEO satellite systems is if they themselves get hacked. There is the obvious issue on the significant problems on earth for communications and mobility reliant sectors like shipping or air travel. However, a bigger concern is that here can also be significant telemetry problems and the risk of satellites being commandeered and programmed to collide with each other. If an event of this magnitude were to occur, the entire sector could be dead before it even starts.
The Helix22 SDK will protect against all of those occurrences.
Even further, Helix22 offers a latency coefficient that is unheard of in the encryption world and is 1000x faster than TLS.
You see, with the Helix22 SDK, the data is always secure and protected. Our security cryptography is neutral to the network or internet service it is running on. The Helix22 data security multi-layered encryption is embedded along with the data, and therefore cannot be exfiltrated. Your typical data security product simply tries to prevent unintended users or attackers from gaining access to your data. Firewalls have proven no match for sophisticated hackers so the most current thinking is in terms of identity management. Solutions such as password managers, 2FA, biometrics are rampant. However, human error or insider attacks have proven more common than good security protocol and id management products are proving ineffective and also are not user friendly.
The bottom-line is that regardless of how attackers gain access, that as soon as the security perimeter is breached, then data access cannot be stopped. People working from home have only compounded this human weakness and successful attacks are now commonplace. LEO Satellite grids will not assist in preventing humans from defeating themselves.
Encryption has proven to have it’s limitations as well. 99.9% of encryption products attempt to protect your data while in transit. However, on a LEO satellite grid, as with here land-based networks, your data is in the clear until encryption is applied with the key. Most encryption services have no choice but to read, copy and save all transmissions prior to encryption, that is just how they work. The only thing keeping a 3rd party or government from accessing it all, is the willingness of the company in question not to release it. Just ask Apple how much fun the have going to court all the time.
D2D encryption
We can make this claim as the tech engineers at BLAKFX invented and patented a genuine device2device (D2D) encryption. We manage data security transmission through the truly brilliant and also patented universal Helix22 key service. The Helix22 encryption originates on your network or device, not just when the app is opened. This means, that when data arrives to our key server, it is already encrypted so all it needs to do is issue another key. Signal and Telegram cannot claim this level of security. This key will then only work with the intended device, which generates a matching key required to open the data. In this protocol, we are truly a “zero-knowledge” server so your communications and transmissions remain completely top secret. Even in the event that BLAKFX were subpoenaed, we can honor the request by just handing over the encrypted content…as that is literally all we have. Helix22 also only use keys just one-time and then destroys them. This way the data security is future forward prefect. Therefore, in our unique device-to-device (D2D) world, there is no opportunity at all for any data leak.
This same protocol just described, can be the same with all your 3rd party vendors and suppliers. It does not matter in the least what platform they are running or what device they are using or even the type of data, it is all 100% protected. We do however, strongly advise that all firms involved be utilizing Helix22 due to the nature of the data content. Helix22 can ensure that whatever data they are generating is protected as well.
Let’s take it a step further. Even if your organization were a victim of an internal attack or a victim of malicious open source downloads, there is no reason for concern. Any data that has been forwarded, downloaded, copied or saved cannot be exfiltrated. Period. We have the technology industries foremost data packets which are protected with multi-layered, military grade encryption algorithms that have already proven the ability to withstand penetration testing from MI5 and quantum computing attacks.
One final practical genius of DNA BindingTM is in that it is immediately compatible with whichever system or software you are utilizing. Therefore, any organization can forward information to another and then discuss it and there is immediate privacy.
Helix22 is Quantum Immune – Start Your Integration on our Git
The Helix22 data security SDK accomplishes the following:
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- Protects all your firms data at rest, in use and in transit
- Renders ransomware threats obsolete
- Eliminates human error
- Eliminates all malicious or interior attacks
- Verifies original content i.e. minimizes the threat of impersonation attacks and deep fakes
- Reduces latency and optimizes 5G networks
- Installs with 5 lines of code
- Runs on any platform, network, device and in any programming language
- Provides perfect future/forward secrecy
- Delivers “zero-knowledge” encryption
- Compatible with all cloud, 3rd party and vendor services
- Enables Internet of Things data security by providing protection at the Edge and has ultra low latency
- Ensures privacy and security for blockchain and all cryptocurrency transactions
- Is quantum ready – so there’s no need to upgrade when the time comes
- Requires no employee training
- Exceeds all gov’t and banking security standards
- Meets all international compliance regulations
BLAKFX is Based on Success
Our founders, Robert Statica PhD and Kara Coppa, also founded Wickr, which is used by the US military and has never been hacked since its inception in 2012. The Helix22 data security SDK is several generations enhanced since then. Dr. Statica also delivered the encryption for the world’s most secure phone, Katim.
Founder – Robert Statica PhD Founder – Kara Coppa
Co-Founders of Wickr KatimTM Ultra Secure Smartphone
The LEO Satellite world will bring the internet to many more people and hopefully might even lead to lower fees for users. It is not however, going to solve the data security issue without Helix22 installed.
Helix22 – Zero Risk