Is Satellite Internet (Starlink) a Military Target?

Starlink is the biggest target out there, but there are tens of thousands of satellites up there. Are they fair game to either hackers or nation state actors?

Are the players like Elon and Jeff (Musk and Bezos) up to the task of defending against state sponsored attacks. We are likely to find out.

Musk has played a significant role in the Ukraine/Russia war and Iran says IT was responsible for knocking Starlink offline in their war. They also say that they have more tools to take on Starlink, which I am sure just warms Elon’s heart.

Iran has renewed a diplomatic fight with Norway over claims that it used Starlink for espionage. That is certainly possible. Credit: Cybernews

Ukraine says it is building “something similar” to Starlink and like the battle between Anthropic and the Pentagon, Kyiv wants “fewer limits” on how they use Starlink and they want to be able to use Starlink to target Russian assets IN RUSSIA. Ukraine wants to launch 120 satellites in 2027 using Elon’s own rockets – so he is willing to take their money now as they become a competitor (limited) later. Since their geographic interest, right now, is limited to the war area, 120 satellites could be meaningful.

Starlink has been essential to Kyiv but Elon is dancing a fine line. They are a major defense contractor and also don’t want to piss off Moscow too much for fear of retribution. Remember that Moscow’s form of retribution is sometimes pretty “permanent” (ask Google about Russia’s use of the nerve agent Novichuk), something that is likely unattractive to Elon.

Elon also wants his buddy, Trump, to sanction companies building Moscow’s Rassvet satellite network, like China and others. Does he worry about becoming less important on the world stage if Moscow is successful? Would it mean that certain countries would buy satellite services from Moscow instead of Elon, which would mean that his friend, Donald, would have less control over how they use it? And, it would be much harder to spy on their traffic than it is today. If we hacked or destroyed Moscow’s satellite capability would that bring the United States into a direct war with the Kremlin? Credit: Cybernews

May we live in interesting times.

by