Inside the Sky Shield: How Secure Is Your Satellite Internet?
On February 24, 2022, a cyberattack on Viasat’s KA-SAT network in Europe disabled about 40,000 modems by targeting a ground VPN appliance and pushing malicious firmware. Starlink’s low Earth orbit system offers latency of 20–40 ms, compared to 500–700 ms for traditional GEO satellites. Unencrypted satellite downlinks can be intercepted with $300 in equipment. Ground stations remain a key vulnerability for network-wide attacks.