August 11, 2023

LAS VEGAS — Hackers in a desert in the Southwest are lobbing a barrage of cyberattacks at a U.S. government satellite on Friday — and it’s exactly what the Pentagon wanted to happen.

The U.S. Air Force and Space Force are hoping the effort, the first-ever attempt to use hackers to break into a live, orbiting satellite, will help them build more secure space systems and identify security gaps that could be exploited by China or other adversaries.

Five teams of hackers are competing at the DEF CON cybersecurity conference in Las Vegas to remotely seize control of Space Force satellite Moonlighter, currently spinning in Earth’s low orbit. Along with trying to break in and build a data link to the satellite, hackers are also trying to keep enemy teams out of their own vulnerable system by using encryption and firewall protections. The satellite is zooming around the earth at about five miles per second, Air Force and Space Force staffers told reporters Friday.

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