Glaring Vulnerabilities Discovered in Satellite Communications

Researchers discover texts, phone calls, military communication, internal corporate networks all easily eavesdropped on using off-the-shelf equipment.

University of California San Diego, La Jolla, CA

With $800 of off-the-shelf equipment and months' worth of patience, a team of U.S. computer scientists set out to find out how well geostationary satellite communications are encrypted. And what they found was shocking.

Close to half of the communications beamed from satellites to the ground that the researchers were able to listen in on were not encrypted. This included sensitive data including cellular text messages, voice calls, as well as sensitive military information, data from internal corporate and bank networks, and the in-flight online activity of airline passengers.