Security issues in Starlink’s satellite-based internet service

Security issues in Starlink’s satellite-based internet service

Starlink is set to enter Sri Lanka and India

October 22, 2024 Daily News LK

Some experts have warned countries about the security risks associated with the Starlink satellite-based internet service.

Starlink, a subsidiary of the Space Exploration Technologies Corporation (SpaceX), based in California, US, is to set up shop in Sri Lanka and India soon. While the deal with Sri Lanka is through, with the company getting a Sri Lankan license effective from August 12, 2024, the deal with India only recently crossed a major hurdle: a decision on the way spectrum will be awarded.

It was only recently that India decided to assign spectrum (or electromagnetic frequencies) on the basis of an “administrative decision” and not an “auction.” This decision came shortly after the Starlink owner, Elon Musk, criticised the auction route proposed by Mukesh Ambani, his rival in India. Ambani owns the Indian telecom giant, Reliance Jio.

Musk had argued that it is international practice (as per the International Telecommunication Union regulations) to award the spectrum administratively rather than by auction. But Reliance Jio’s Ambani argued in favour of an auction “to ensure a level playing field.”

The Indian Telecom Minister, Jyotiraditya Scindia, rejected Ambani’s plea. He announced that spectrum would be allocated administratively “as per Indian laws,” and that its pricing will be “determined by the telecom watchdog.” Scindia further said that deviating from this approach to conduct an auction would set India apart from the rest of the world.

Huge Indian market

Thus, Musk won hands down, and Ambani lost a huge market. The Indian internet market is projected to show a 36% annual growth. The market is expected to reach US$ 1.9 billion by 2030. India now has 42 million wired broadband internet users and 904 million telecom users on networks like 4G and 5G. India is the world’s second-biggest telecom market after China.

However, internet penetration is still inadequate. Penetration stood at only 52.4% in 2024. There are still 25,000 villages without internet, and even within cities, many areas don’t have fibre-based fast internet connections.

Therefore, it can be argued that satellite-based internet will definitely help provide internet coverage to every part of India. But there are attendant security risks.

Security risks

Indian nationalists are worried that India’s security may be compromised, given Starlink’s close links with the American armed forces. Telecommunication is a very sensitive domain in India. India has barred Chinese telecom companies from entering this sector, fearing penetration into Indian systems.

Sensitivity to security is so great that a permit is needed even to use a satellite phone. Sometime ago, The Hindu reported that a fisherman from Kerala and a foreigner were arrested for using a satellite phone, the former out in the open sea and the latter in a remote area on land.

As per Indian social media, nationalists ask the following questions:

“Would India be able to control Starlink when India-US relations deteriorate? Would Starlink cease its services on the orders of the US Government? Would Indian regulators be able to keep an eye on the use of the Starlink system and ensure that it is not used for espionage or for tampering with vital Indian communications?”

At present, India-US relations are troubled. The US has alleged the involvement of Indian intelligence personnel in an attempt to murder a US citizen of Indian origin, Gurpatwant Singh Pannun, in New York last year. In India, Pannun is a banned Sikh separatist and terrorist. But in the US, he is a citizen whose rights are inviolable. The case is now in a New York court, and an Indian suspect is in custody in the US.

In addition, India has differences with the US over Ukraine, Iran, Russia, QUAD, and now Bangladesh too. Indo-US relations could deteriorate. In that case, the question that is asked is: What role could Starlink play given its links with the US military?

Technical Threats

In his paper entitled “Cyber Threat Landscape Analysis for Starlink: Assessing Risks and Mitigation Strategies in the Global Satellite Internet Infrastructure,” Karwan Mustafa Kareem of the University of Sulaimani in Iraq, says that the technical dangers from Starlink are the following: There could be Denial-of-Service (DoS); Man-in-the-Middle (MitM); Jamming; Spoofing; and Physical tampering.

Kareem emphasises the importance of encryption algorithms, authentication protocols, and intrusion detection systems in safeguarding satellite networks against unauthorised access and data breaches.

He stresses the need for continuous monitoring and threat intelligence sharing to detect and respond to emerging threats effectively. Countries using Starlink satellite-based internet service have to make sure that they have all these safeguards in place, Kareem says.

India had asked Starlink about its shareholders to know if any country in India’s neighbourhood with which it was at odds was on the list. India was particularly worried about China and Pakistan, the latter believed to be in cahoots with China. Starlink replied that no neighbourhood entity is a shareholder.

Links with US Military

SpaceX and Starlink have very close ties with the US military. Websites like www.spacenews.org have regularly reported the growing ties between SpaceX/Starlink and the various arms of the US military.

In March 2017, the US Air Force announced that it had awarded SpaceX a US$ 96.5 million contract to support the launch of a next-generation global positioning system satellite called GPS III.

In February 2019, the US Air Force’s Strategic Development Planning and Experimentation Office signed a US$ 28 million contract with SpaceX requiring the company to conduct military service demonstrations and verification using the Starlink constellation.

In May 2019, Defence Experimentation Using the Commercial Space Internet, or DEUCSI, tried out the Starlink satellite broadband services and demonstrated download speeds of 610 megabits per second into the cockpit of a C-12J Huron twin-engine turboprop aircraft.

In May 2020, the US Army said it would experiment using Starlink broadband to move data across military networks.

In October 2020, SpaceX received a contract worth more than US$ 149 million from the Space Development Agency (SDA), tasking the company with building a new satellite for the US military capable of tracking and providing early warnings of hypersonic missile launches.

SpaceX launched the Falcon 9 rocket carrying more than 20 tons of payload into Low-Earth Orbit. Controlled recovery and soft landing of the first stage of the rocket and its reuse were achieved, greatly reducing launch costs. SpaceX has also undertaken the development and launch of the Dragon spacecraft.

Yan Jiajie and Yu Nanping say in their September 2024 paper in the Journal of International Security Studies that each Starlink satellite can transmit high-definition pictures and videos it takes over a war zone to front-line commanders.

The huge amount of data collected by UAVs over the battlefield will no longer need to be compressed locally, but will be transmitted in raw form directly to a command centre on the other side of the earth via Starlink, and then analysed by supercomputers to extract useful data and analyse the battlefield situation more precisely, enabling commanders in the war zone to make decisions more quickly and accurately.

Precision Targeting

On January 3, 2020, the US used a UAV to take out Iranian Major General Qasem Soleimani. On November 27 of the same year, Mohsen Fakhrizadeh, head of Iran’s nuclear programme and its chief nuclear scientist, was assassinated near Tehran.

“These actions were made possible by the global high-speed communication and space-air coordination capabilities achieved via satellite networks. If Starlink is used on a large scale in the military field in the future, it will further enhance the US military’s satellite communication and unmanned combat capabilities, and be a threat to the national security of rival States,” Yan Jiajie and Yu Nanping point out in their paper.

They also say that the growing deployment of Starlink satellites in Low-Earth Orbit (LEO) will give the company control over a large amount of data, challenging the security of other countries.

Analyst Zhou Yuzhe points out that since the International Telecommunication Union’s principle for obtaining orbits and spectrum is “first come, first served,” Starlink will corner large amounts of orbital and spectrum resources, leaving less room for others.