HYDERABAD: Hollywood sci-fi movies often show antagonists hacking into satellite systems and then using it for their ulterior motives. Although the manner and the scale at which these movies portray these situations may be fictional, it would not be far from the truth to say that, satellite ground stations are also liable to cyber threats.
This idea was explored in a recent paper by B Gopala Krishna, a scientist at the National Remote Sensing Centre, Hyderabad which he presented at the Indian Institute of Engineers.
Firstly, what are satellite ground stations? As the name suggests, these are surface-based establishments which provide real-time communications with satellites. The scientists working there send radio signals to the satellite, and receive data transmissions from there.
“At the heart of a ground station is the control room, wherein satellite data is acquired. To cater to the various needs of the ground station requirements, a lot of IT infrastructure is required to be implemented including the management of cyber security throughout the ground chain (from data reception to dissemination),” Krishna wrote in his paper.