Cybersecurity threats to satellite communications: Towards a typology of state actor responses

• Cybersecurity threats to satellites are key concern for space sustainability.
• Satellite and cyberspace activities rely on intn’l cooperation for agreed norms.
• A typology of hostile events liable to disrupt satellite communications is proposed.
• The article reviews four relevant legal regimes regarding satellite communications.
• A comprehensive, integrative multi-stakeholder review of norms should be undertaken.

Cybersecurity threats to satellite communications are a relatively new phenomenon, yet have quickly come to the forefront of concern for the sustainability of satellite systems due to the vulnerabilities that such threats may exploit and negatively impact. These vulnerabilities are mission-critical: they include launch systems, communications, telemetry, tracking and command, and mission completion. They and other aspects of satellite communications depend heavily on secure and resilient cyber capabilities for all stages of the satellite’s lifespan. Because of the inherently global nature of both satellite and cyberspace activities, these capabilities rely significantly on international cooperation for setting a baseline of agreed legal norms that protect satellites and satellite communications. This critical cooperation is relevant during all mission phases, from planning to final wrap-up. Under optimal circumstances, the norms and standards protecting satellites and satellite transmissions are developed and enforced by those nation-state actors that are committed to system operability and overall mission sustainability for those satellites launched under their aegis and responsibility. However, when breaches of international law do occur in the form of hostile cyber events that cause damage to satellite communications, a range of measures should be available to the victim state, provided by the appropriate legal regime or regimes. This article proposes that a comprehensive and integrative multi-stakeholder review be undertaken in the near future of the measures available under international law for responding to hostile acts directed at satellite systems and communications, in a manner that takes into account both existing regimes of international law reviewed herein, as well as considerations of cybersecurity. These measures will depend upon the characterization of hostile interference with satellite transmissions in accordance with a proposed typology of hostile events. At present, four key normative international law regimes influence the types of measures that may be undertaken by states: the UN Charter’s collective security regime; space law (governing the launching of objects and their space activities, including liability for damages); global telecommunications law (governing data transmissions and protection of infrastructures); and the substantive law relating to transborder freedom of information. Moreover, the nascent normative framework that will eventually apply to state and non-state activities in cyberspace will also be relevant to satellite communications, although it has been largely excluded from analyses and studies. In summary, this article proposes a typology of hostile events, both kinetic and cyber-enabled, that are liable to disrupt satellite communications; and it reviews the four key relevant legal regimes and notes the challenges of nascent cybersecurity law on the international plane. The article concludes by advocating for the establishment of a framework for effective elucidation of appropriate legal remedies at the international level in responding to kinetic, virtual and hybrid threats and hostile disruptions to satellite communications.