Whispers Among the Stars: Satellite Broadband Security
Oxford researcher James Pavur uses a $300 home satellite TV dish to intercept sensitive enterprise and maritime broadband data transmitted unencrypted across outer space.
Summary
The Explosive Growth of Satellite Broadband
Geostationary and low-Earth orbit satellites broadcast high-speed data downlinks over massive geographic footprints covering oceans, airspace, and continents.
Intercepting Ku-Band Feeds with Budget Television Hardware
James Pavur demonstrates that using a standard $300 consumer satellite dish, tuner card, and software-defined radio enables eavesdropping on gigabytes of live satellite traffic.
Harvesting Sensitive Enterprise, Aviation, and Maritime Data
Analyzing unencrypted DVB-S2 satellite streams exposed aircraft passengers' in-flight browsing, maritime ship telemetry, critical utility SCADA data, and corporate emails.
Practical Cryptographic Countermeasures for Satellite Networks
Pavur presents mitigation strategies, urging telecommunications satellite operators and enterprise customers to enforce end-to-end transport layer encryption.
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