"Most people don't understand cyber security", - said 10 March Nicholas Goddard, operational director of the US Navy's Cyber Defense Command, during a discussion on emerging threats at the Satellite conference 2025.
The Goddard Organization, which is responsible for the protection of classified and unclassified infrastructure of the Navy in the maritime and osmotic domain, "registers from 8,4 to 8,6 billion events every 24 years », - say Goddard. "We are improving the classification and characterization of threats, but sharing this information with commercial industry is a challenge.”.
The U.S. military releases threat intelligence to companies through the Space Intelligence Sharing and Analysis Center in Colorado Springs and the Commercial Integration Center at Vandenberg Space Force Base in California.
Yet, many industry leaders do not understand the threat very well, which is made up of state organizations in China and Russia. "When it comes to subjects of threat to the state, the best defense is a really good system administrator with the support of corporate management”, Goddard said.
Attackers will attack the weakest link in the communication network. They, example, steal credentials from people, who work in corporate networks remotely from home through old routers. "The most important thing, what to do, to protect against some of these threats, — have modern devices and constantly update the software", Goddard said.
Having gained access to corporate networks, attackers can steal intellectual property. Increasingly, however, threat actors remain quietly networked, developing attacks. "Imagine, that the day before the conflict, electricity and water will suddenly be turned off", Goddard said. "Part of the task is to identify these threatening entities, that steal your credentials and use them in a way, which is secret for any network, which you are connected to". Attackers also gain access to supply chain networks.
In addition to cyber threats, lasers and radio frequency interference threaten satellites, Troy Brashear said, vice president of Northrop Grumman Satellite Missions. Laser and radio frequency attacks began to appear more often after the Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022 year. "We are trying to understand the threats, soften them and, perhaps, confront them", Brasher said. "I also think about the space between the Earth and the Moon. Where are adversaries moving from this perspective and what could it mean for our civil and national security space programs?.
Source: https://spacenews.com/evolving-threats-from-cyber-to-lasers-and-jammers/