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When it comes to warfare in space, many envision lasers, missiles and maybe a nuclear device tucked into orbit. But Christopher Scolese, who runs the National Reconnaissance Office, isn’t worried about death rays. He’s worried about hackers.
Scolese, director of the agency in charge of U.S. spy satellites, was blunt at the recent Intelligence and National Security Summit: “My number one concern is cyber,” he said.
In an era when adversaries such as China and Russia are fielding advanced anti-satellite technology, that statement is telling. Deploying kinetic or directed-energy weapons in orbit remains technically and financially daunting. Offensive cyber capabilities, by contrast, are far easier to acquire and notoriously hard to trace.
“The cost of admission is relatively cheap in the cyber area,” Scolese said. “So we remain very much concerned about that.”
The worry is justified, and the attack surface is vast. Satellites orbiting Earth, the radio frequency signals that connect them and the ground systems that control and process their data all represent points of vulnerability. A well-placed digital intrusion could cascade through an entire satellite network.
The NRO itself saw a breach this summer when hackers compromised its Acquisition Research Center website, which contractors use to submit bids. That incident targeted intellectual property and personal information, not satellites directly, but it showed cyber adversaries are probing every corner of the ecosystem, including the industrial base.
Scolese admitted the unpredictability of the threat. “It’s one of those things that tomorrow, there’s going to be a different threat, and we have to adapt very quickly.”
The challenges are magnified by the rapid commercialization of space. Public-private integration has expanded capability but also the attack surface. Securing it requires standardized protocols, active intelligence sharing and a recognition that the government cannot wall itself off from the vulnerabilities of its partners.
The adversaries already have a playbook. Col. Erica Mitchell of the NRO’s Communications Systems Directorate pointed to Russia’s behavior as the clearest example. Moscow has not only deployed electronic jamming to deny GPS signals, but also carried out the Viasat cyberattack that disrupted satellite internet across Europe during the early days of the Ukraine war.
The bigger problem, Mitchell noted, is that space still lacks international norms. “As it stands, space is treated very differently across different nations and until we reach some type of almost unanimous agreement on what can be done in space, we are going to have those who treat it as a Wild Wild West, in which they can do whatever they want.”
Even if norms existed, the satellites themselves remain vulnerable by design. Many operate for decades with a “fire and forget” mindset, deployed without any mechanism for updates or patches. As Mitchell put it, “Let’s figure out a way where we’re not firing and forgetting these exquisite satellites in space and then having them live for 20 or 30 years, let’s make it where we can continue to improve them and have them be protected.”
A few modern systems now allow encrypted over-the-air updates, much like smartphones. And companies are rolling out AI tools to help detect intrusions before they can do significant damage. But as Mitchell noted, the industry has yet to develop practical models for on-orbit servicing that would enable cybersecurity upgrades after launch.
Security must therefore be embedded from the start, and it must be exercised, she said. War-gaming and red-teaming exercises that simulate cyber intrusions cascading into radio-frequency interference or operational sabotage are not luxuries but necessities.
The NRO’s decision to shift toward proliferated constellations of smaller satellites is one way to hedge. No single point of failure can blind the system. Redundancy in space is resilience against both kinetic and cyber threats. But resilience does not equal immunity.
“Preparation begins left of boom,” Mitchell said, underscoring the need to anticipate threats before they materialize.
America’s edge in space remains. But as Scolese warned, “We’re investing” in defenses and still looking for “ideas on how we can be more effective and protect our systems.” The battle for space supremacy may one day be fought in orbit with lasers and missiles but today is being fought in the shadows of cyberspace.
This article was first published in the October 2025 issue of SpaceNews Magazine.
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