Cyber & SPACE

Cyber has emerged as the major enabler of hybrid threats posed by government agencies and non-state actors. The days have gone, when cyber was simply an emerging capability that needed to be exploited. Today cyber has become a game changer in multiple domains. It has evolved into a global domain consisting of the interdependent networks of information technology infrastructures and resident data, including the internet, telecommunications networks, computer systems, with significant influence on other domains such as land, air, sea, and space.

Perhaps one of the most challenging of potential scenarios – actually one currently confronting NATO and the European Union – is an opponent’s ability to establish Anti-Access/Area Denial (A2/AD) postures, i.e. ways and means to counter own power projection from accessing and achieving freedom of manoeuvre in key areas. As new government actors, companies, goals, and technologies are expanding and transforming space activities some states have developed the means in space or from Earth by cyber, manoeuvres or even by force, to prevent access to space or to degrade the space capabilities of other countries.

The unhindered access to and freedom to operate in space is of vital interest of nations and international organizations such as NATO and the European Union. Given that there are few distributed technological systems that do not rely on satellites for some vital piece of its functionality, the importance of space assets and retaining the confidentiality, integrity, and availability of the information that they carry cannot be overstated. Navigation and weather monitoring, communications and financial networks, military and intelligence systems, and more have components in the space domain. Space infrastructure has become a critical infrastructure.