Security in data-driven satellite applications: An overview and new perspectives

The worldwide deployment of satellite constellations has received considerable attention in recent years. In this overview paper, we intensively study the security issues in typical data-driven on-orbit applications. First, we identify the security threats in the Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) and review a series of anomaly detection and auto-correlation-based methods to resist typical attacks. Second, we show the security issues in satellite communications, which suffer from the dynamic topology and frequent change of access points; meanwhile, we propose a secure mobility management framework concerning handover and location management. Third, we discuss the satellite remote sensing application’s secure on-orbit data processing paradigm. This paradigm achieves secure coordination between multiple tasks with heterogeneous on-orbit resources and secure on-orbit joint computation. As the study of securing satellite applications, especially in securing on-orbit data computation, is limited, our overview paper provides an early overview of this area. It also shows future security research trends in typical applications.