Satellite user terminals are a promising target for adversaries seeking to target satellite communication networks. Despite this, many protections commonly found in terrestrial routers are not present in some user terminals. As a case study we audit the attack surface presented by the Starlink router's admin interface, using fuzzing to uncover a denial of service attack on the Starlink user terminal. We explore the attack's impact, particularly in the cases of drive-by attackers, and attackers that are able to maintain a continuous presence on the network. Finally, we discuss wider implications, looking at lessons learned in terrestrial router security, and how to properly implement them in this new context.
@article{arxiv.2303.00582,
title = {Dishing Out DoS: How to Disable and Secure the Starlink User Terminal},
author = {Joshua Smailes and Edd Salkield and Sebastian Köhler and Simon Birnbach and Ivan Martinovic},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2303.00582},
year = {2023}
}
Comments
6 pages, 2 figures; the first two authors contributed equally to this paper