So, the Department of Defense, historically, has operated cyber security through obscurity.
And that is a culture that we're trying to change.
So, we're getting outside of our fence lines and involving communities that can help us,
like DEF CON, to see if we need to up our game in cyber.
We need more security researchers in the industry. We need the existing security researchers that
are out there to connect with the space and aerospace community.
And it isn't enough to have them come in after the fact and to do a security assessment at the end.
We need the researchers to be a part of the development team and include them
within the entire lifecycle of these systems.
Welcome to Space Security Challenge 2020, HackASAT, the final event.
As the democratization of space opens up a new frontier for exploration and innovation,
we see new cyber security vulnerabilities emerging.
The Space Security Challenge is designed to inspire the world's top cyber security talent
to develop the skills necessary to secure this last frontier of cyber security, space.
Every federally funded lab is charted with the mission of technology transfer.
Technology transfer is all about taking government-owned intellectual property
and transferring it to the public domain. The Air Force Research Lab and our charter
to perform tech transfer put us in the best position to lead this effort.
But first, we had to overcome the monumental task of convincing people
that hacking a satellite was actually a good thing to do in the name of improving space security.
But we persevered and our mission fueled the creation of what we called
the Space Security Challenge 2020, HackASAT.
At the heart of it, we needed to create a community where one didn't currently exist.
And we wanted to leverage the challenge model because we've learned a lot from DARPA
and they've been very successful at creating communities through challenges.
And so DARPA created this challenge back in like 2004, bringing together the AI industry,
the sensor industry or community, and also the automotive industry to formulate a challenge
to improve the security of the automotive industry leveraging AI.
Now you fast forward 15 years, we have a fully functioning industry of autonomous vehicles.
And that's ultimately where we're going with Space Security Challenge HackASAT.
We want to build trust and security into our space systems.
So we needed to get the attention of the hacker community.
And we're not typically as the Air Force and now Space Force,
we're not trying to do outreach to the hacker community.
So we had a new unique challenge on our hands.
We also needed to get the attention of policymakers and the general public and industry.
We needed people to care about this because it affects all of us.
And then the pandemic hit.
And all of our plans to run the finals at DEF CON,
with the building audience of tens of thousands that DEF CON attracts, shattered.
So we pivoted.
So we needed to figure out a way to hold finals virtually
and still achieve our goal of cultivating a research community.
And it became apparent that this pivot to virtual was actually more of an opportunity.
It was an opportunity to reach people who wouldn't have normally been able to travel to DEF CON.
But there were huge challenges associated with this for both the competitors and the spectators.
So in July, we shipped each team leader a flat sat, which came with an air bearing.
What the teams could do is they could put their flat sat on top of the air bearings,
and then they could use the attitude control system in the flat sat to be able to rotate
the flat sat to kind of emulate what it would be like if they were in space.
But with COVID, what we didn't anticipate were the global shipping timelines.
Two of our teams didn't get their flat sats until later.
In fact, the third place team, Flux Repeat Rocket,
didn't even receive their flat sat until the morning of the competition on August 7th.
That was a real nail biter.
Then there were the spectators. After all, the world is watching now.
We needed to be able to give people all over the world a way to feel like they were part of the
action. So we built this fully immersive 3D environment for spectators to explore
and watch the competition. We did our best to give it a DEF CON feel so that people really
felt like they were still part of that environment that we worked so hard to be part of.
And so as part of this environment, we created this extensive library of content and videos.
And so all of the content that we created on HackASAT, as well as all of the videos that
were created, are available on our GitHub page and our YouTube channel,
and where you can access that information and continue to learn about hacking, cyber, and space.
The scenario was based around a mock stolen satellite.
Once the teams were on the satellite, the remaining challenges had to do with removing
the presence of the malicious actor that was on that satellite, orient it so that they could then
use the imager to take a photo of the moon that we had set up inside of the facility where the
flatsats were all located. The other part of the challenge, the teams were tasked with coming up
with a command set that would point an actual satellite at the actual moon. Teams were given
a very limited amount of time to accomplish that goal, and one of them was able to successfully
take a photo of the moon using that command set. We're going to answer the question as to which
team had their code sent into space tonight. Congrats to Team Poland Can into Space for
submitting not only the best solution overall throughout the whole evaluation period, but the
solution that is going to space. We expect the moonshot to happen in a couple of hours at 630
pacific, and that picture will be sent down to earth at about 1am pacific. There will be people
who are hacking satellites, and so by having the federal government structure this in a nice,
organized, and safe way, we can do it without getting in any trouble, and they can get the
results and the understanding that they need from an attacker's perspective. Having the ability to
approach something with the mindset of, you know, how could I break this, always helps you understand
how a system works better. It's something we all as a community have to be thinking about.
And the security community wants to be a part of that. They would like to be involved with
these systems, would like to secure these systems, would like to learn more about these systems,
so openness and transparency, and getting access to more of these systems going forward.
And we need the space community, the aerospace community, to be open and available
and receptive to that. And that's what we were trying to accomplish with Hack-A-Sat, put on a
game that brought those two communities together and raised that awareness. And I think we did a
good job of that. Now we hand the ball off, maybe, to the aerospace community to take that over.
So the direction I think we're going, that we ought to go, is fully embracing the hacker
community at DEFCON, and not waiting till systems are built to create opportunities to learn and
help us learn, help us make them more secure before we're producing them. The systems we build
are unique. They have some pretty amazing technology in them, and I think the opportunity
for the hacker community to get new hands-on experience would also be really energizing and
cool. So events like Hack-A-Sat are awesome live events, but the relationship and continuing it
across a broader set of opportunities is what's more exciting. A year ago, hacking a satellite
felt pretty hard, but we're there now. You know, we aren't what you expect, and we do really, really
cool things. Last thing, thanks for joining us. The future of space security depends on the work
we're doing together.