The European Space Agency (ESA) has a twofold objective in view: facilitate the work of space mission managers, enabling them to pinpoint the main mission risks, and raising awareness of the cyberthreats that might affect space missions
GMV has been chosen by the European Space Agency (ESA) to conduct an analysis of cybersecurity risks and set up a policy that establishes a series of control recommendations for the different types of space missions
With this project ESA has a twofold objective in view: firstly, to facilitate the work of space mission managers, enabling them to pinpoint the main mission risks in a straightforward way and establish risk-mitigation or -avoidance measures to suit, and secondly to raise awareness of the cyberthreats that might affect space missions.
GMV was chosen as the ideal firm to carry out the project. Behind its bid lie over 27 years of experience in the space sector. It is one of the world’s main suppliers of international space agencies and organizations and boasts a wealth of knowledge, expertise and a high degree of specialization in information security.
Two complementary support activities will also be carried out to give even greater value to the study and bring out its results. Firstly, members of organizations linked with the space missions (operators, manufacturers, suppliers, users, etc.) will be surveyed to find out their views of the main threats, vulnerabilities and control measures present in space missions. Secondly, GMV’s inhouse digital surveillance solution, atalaya, based on the compilation of company information using multiple sources (search engines, blogs, social networking sites, forums, P2P networks, anonymous networks), will be used to cull information on persons, groups or organizations with potential interest in carrying out attacks on space missions, plus information on threats or vulnerabilities present and other aspects.
This study has to take in the whole mission lifecycle, all stakeholders and all elements forming part of space missions. One of the main difficulties will be classification of space missions to be able to categorize each one in terms of the security vulnerabilities and threats it is most exposed to. Once achieved, this will enable a consistent risk assessment to be made of all missions included within the same category.
