SpaceX CEO Elon Musk said in a tweet that Russia is constantly trying to hack his company's Starlink satellite internet service to disrupt its operations in Ukraine .
"attempts hacking so far, but (the country) is stepping up its efforts," he tweeted.
Musk posted the tweet on the same day that the US, European Union and UK formally blamed the Russian government for the February cyberattack on satellite communications provider Viasat, which caused outages in Central and Eastern Europe just hours before Russia launched its invasion of Ukraine.
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“The European Union and its Member States, together with its international partners, strongly condemn the Russian Federation’s malicious cyber activity against Ukraine, which targeted the KA-SAT satellite network, operated by Viasat,” the EU said in the joint statement.
The attack, which included data-wiping malware, was reportedly designed to disrupt the Ukrainian government’s access to satellite internet as Russia prepared and carried out its invasion of the country. But the disruption was so severe that it shut down tens of thousands of Viasat internet modems across Europe and rendered them inoperable. The US and EU now fear that the Kremlin could launch similar attacks in the future, which could affect other parts of the world.
According to Elon Musk, Russia is also trying to hack the Starlink service, which now serves about 150,000 users in Ukraine. In early March, the billionaire tweeted that Starlink had thwarted a attack “signal jamming”. However, not many details about this incident have been released.
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Musk had written in a tweet: “Some Starlink terminals near conflict areas were blocked for several hours. Our latest software update bypasses the blockage. I’m curious to see what comes next!”.
Russia is likely trying to shut down Starlink because the satellite service provides high-speed broadband to both civilians and Ukrainian soldiers on the front lines of the war. The country appears to be stepping up its efforts to shut down the service. In fact, Elon Musk had tweeted a text in Russian in which the head of the Russian space agency threatened the billionaire over the supply of Starlink equipment to the Ukrainian military.
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Elon Musk has been on Russia’s side since the beginning, offering Ukrainian citizens the ability to use the Starlink satellite service to continue to have contact with the outside world. Yesterday’s tweet from Elon Musk signals that SpaceX has strengthened its defenses to prevent both signal jamming attacks and other hacking attempts by Russia. The US also says it is “taking steps to defend against Russia’s irresponsible actions.”
A few words about Starlink
Starlink is a satellite internet service operated by SpaceX, Elon Musk's aerospace company. It provides satellite internet coverage in 33 countries where its use is licensed and aims for global coverage. Since May 2022, Starlink consists of more than 2,200 small satellites in low Earth orbit.
Source: www.pcmag.com
