Hack-A-Sat
Hack-A-Sat 2020 was a satellite hacking contest run by the US Air Force and Defense Digital Service, with online qualifiers (spanning 48 weekend hours) and an online final event originally intended to be hosted at the DEF CON conference. The Cromulence team was responsible for much of both contests.
After months of collaboration with the Air Force Research Laboratory, Cromulence successfully hosted the Hack-A-Sat competition at DEF CON 28 Safe Mode. The HAS qualifying round concluded in May with 2,213 teams registered and over 6,000 players competing in the Jeopardy-style Capture the Flag (CTF) competition. Top teams qualified for the HAS final event, hosted virtually from Cromulence's Melbourne, FL facility. The final event, which included mock satellites "orbiting" on a custom-built carousel, was held between August 7th and 8th and featured 8 teams with players from 12 countries competing for a chance to win a piece of the $100,000 prize pool ($50,000 1st place, $30,000 2nd place, and $20,000 3rd place).
In addition to being a technical challenge for top hacking teams, HAS also had the goals of spreading awareness of the need for cybersecurity in space and providing opportunities for education of up-and-coming hackers. To this end, the challenges and solutions for both events have now been made available on Cromulence's GitHub. We hope the release of this software will help launch new collaborative efforts between the cybersecurity community and satellite operations.
https://github.com/cromulencellc/hackasat-qualifier-2020
https://github.com/cromulencellc/hackasat-final-2020
Visit https://hackasat.com/ to access the 3D Hackers Den experience and see all the activities from the Space Security Challenge during 2020 DEF CON Safe Mode.
“Space is an increasingly important contributor to global economies and security”
Will Roper, assistant secretary of the Air Force for acquisition, technology, and logistics said in an Aug. 3 press release. “Letting experts hack an orbiting satellite will teach us how to build more secure systems in the future.”
“The US military and intelligence communities are also increasingly worried about conflict in space”
“That vulnerability, plus a fear of impending attack, explain why the Air Force and the Defense Digital Service dreamed up Hack-a-Sat: so they can learn about holes and bugs before someone exploits them, and so they can foster the talent that could patch things up if someone does maliciously access a satellite. “That’s where we started,” says Clair Koroma of the Defense Digital Service, who helped organize Hack-a-Sat. “We give this community access to a satellite in a way that they never would have had before, and we get to learn all of the nuances, and all of the vulnerabilities, that we weren’t anticipating. And we get to mitigate those.” https://www.wired.com/story/the-feds-want-these-teams-to-hack-a-satellite-from-home/