Earlier this week at the Black Hat security conference, Belgian researcher Lennert Wouters revealed how he can mount a successful fault injection attack on a terminal for SpaceX’s satellite-based internet system. The successful hack was conducted using a homemade circuit board that Wouters claims cost roughly $25 to develop. The satellite dish used to access the system allowed Wouters to break into the dish and explore the network from there. The hack was detailed at the conference this week, where ethical hackers meet up to share information like Wouters’ discovery.
First, Wouters physically stripped down a satellite dish he purchased and created the board, which is also referred to as a modchip, that can be attached to a Starlink dish. The board was created using off-the-shelf parts and was leveraged to obtain root access. Wouters designed the chip by scanning the satellite dish and formatting the design to fit over the existing board. He then soldered the chip himself to conduct the attack.