Spacecraft Compromise

Threat actors may initially compromise a spacecraft in order to access the target Ground station. Once compromised, the threat actor can perform a multitude of initial access techniques, including replay, compromising FSW deployment, compromising encryption keys, and compromising authentication schemes. Threat actors may also perform further reconnaissance within the system to enumerate mission networks and gather information related to ground station logical topology, missions ran out of said ground station, and other mission system capabilities.

ID: ATAGS-T1036
Sub-techniques:  No sub-techniques
Tactic: Initial Access
Targeted Components: Satellite Communications
Responsibility: Shared
Created: 18 April 2026
Last Modified: 18 April 2026

Mitigations

This type of attack technique cannot be easily mitigated with preventive controls since it is based on the abuse of system features.