WASHINGTON – “Most folks don’t understand cyber,” Nicholas Goddard, Navy Cyber Defense Operations Command operations director, said March 10 during a panel on evolving threats at the Satellite 2025 conference.
Goddard’s organization, charged with safeguarding the Navy’s classified and unclassified infrastructure from the seabed to geosynchronous orbit, “sees anywhere from 8.4 to 8.6 billion events every 24 hours,” Goddard said. “We’re getting better at classifying and characterizing the threat. But sharing that information with the commercial industry is a problem.”
The U.S. military discloses threat information to companies through the Space Information Sharing and Analysis Center in Colorado Springs and the Commercial Integration Cell at Vandenberg Space Force Base in California.
Still, many industry executives do not have a good grasp of the threat posed by state-sponsored organizations in China and Russia.
“When it comes to nation-state threat actors, the best defense is a really good system administrator, backed by corporate leadership that supports them,” Goddard said.
Adversaries will attack the weakest link in a communications network. They may, for example, steal credentials from people who gain access to corporate networks through old routers in their homes.
“The number one thing to do to defend against some of these threats is have new stuff and constantly update your software,” Goddard said. “Go to Best Buy after this week and buy a new router.”
Critical Infrastructure
Once adversaries gain access to corporate networks, they may steal intellectual property. Increasingly, though, threat actors remain quietly enmeshed in networks while devising attacks.
“Imagine a day before we have a conflict, all of a sudden the power and water gets turned off,” Goddard said. “Part of the challenge is to identify these threat actors stealing your credentials and using them in a way that is surreptitious to whatever network you’re attached to.”
Adversaries also gain access to networks through the supply chain.
“It’s frightening to me how many single points of failure there are for anything that you build, which is complex,” said In-Q-Tel partner Gareth Keane. “Cyber intrusion into that supply chain has happened all the way along.”
Laser and RF Jamming
In addition to cyberthreats, lasers and radio frequency jammers endanger satellites, said Troy Brashear, Northrop Grumman Satellite Missions vice president.
Laser and RF jamming attacks have been on an upswing since Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022.
“We’re trying to understand the threats, mitigate and potentially counter them,” Brashear said. “I also think out about cislunar [space]. Where adversaries are going from that perspective, and what that might mean for our civil and national security space programs.”
Space Imagery
Maxar Intelligence is helping government agencies assess space-based threats by gathering imagery of objects in orbit, said Lisa Henke, Maxar Intelligence chief of technology and innovation for the U.S. Government.
With the rapid growing number of satellites in orbit, “understanding what is normal, having awareness of what is happening and being able to characterize those threats is going to be critically important,” Henke said.
