SaTC: CORE: Small: Building Resilience into LEO Satellite Networks by Exploiting Network Layer Characteristics

作为人类社会的重要基础设施，低轨卫星网络的安全事关重大。卫星网络可能会受到动机强烈的对手的过度攻击，其中一些人得到国家支持，拥有潜在的无限计算和情报资源，从而严重挑战现有的安全措施，通常假设攻击者是资源有限的。假设这一更新的威胁模型，该项目将探索新的反措施防御方法。建议的工作的创新之处在于考虑到低轨卫星系统在其网络层所拥有的内在资源，如丰富而密集的卫星连接和高卫星移动性，以开发一套能够提高低轨卫星网络抵御攻击能力的物理约束而不是计算约束的安全方法。该项目更广泛的意义和重要性在于直接解决LEO系统面临的安全威胁，以保护这一关键基础设施的社会和经济效益。该项目将从几个方面从根本上推动LEO卫星网络安全研究的发展。特别是，通过利用LEO卫星的全球空间分布及其密集的连通性和高移动性，本项目将提出基于物理约束的随机多路径路由的密钥生成方法，该方法不受资源约束的攻击。该项目还将通过考虑隐蔽、间歇和选择性的分组丢弃攻击来研究对LEO网络可用性的网络攻击。为了在恶劣的星间通信环境下准确识别高移动性引起的隐身丢包者，将开发一种新的检测方法。对所有建议的方法的评估将在缩小的面向快照的静态试验台上进行，并辅之以对真实低轨系统(如Starlink和OneWeb)的卫星轨道跟踪数据的计算机模拟。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力优势和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

Being a critical infrastructure of our society, the security of low Earth orbit (LEO) satellite networks has a high stake. A satellite network may be subject to excessive attacks launched by strongly motivated adversaries, some of whom are state sponsored with potentially unlimited computing and intelligence resources thus seriously challenging existing security measures, quite often under the assumption that attackers are resource constrained. Assuming this updated threat model, this project will explore new counter-measure defense approaches. The novelties of proposed efforts are to take considerations of the intrinsic resources possessed by a LEO satellite system at its network layer, such as rich and dense satellite connectivity and high satellite mobility, to develop a suite of physical-constrained, rather than computation-constrained, security methods that can improve LEO satellite network’s resilience against attacks. The project's broader significance and importance are to directly address the security threats faced by LEO systems in order to protect the social and economic benefits of this critical infrastructure.This project will fundamentally advance the state of art LEO satellite network security research from several aspects. In particular, by exploiting the global spatial distribution of LEO satellites and their dense connectivity and high mobility, this project will propose physical-constrained randomized multi-path-routing-based secret key generation methods that are immune to resource-unconstrained attacks. This project will also study cyberattacks on the availability of the LEO networks by considering stealthy, intermittent, and selective packet dropping attacks. A novel detection method will be developed to accurately identify those stealthy packet droppers under harsh inter-satellite communication environment caused by the high mobility. Evaluation of all proposed methods will be performed on a scale-down snapshot-oriented static testbed, complemented by computer simulations on satellite-orbiting-trace data of real LEO systems such as Starlink and OneWeb.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.