CYSEC launches satcom security solution

Data security has traditionally been the number one obstacle to using commercial services which would give governmental users access to much larger bandwidth, more competitive prices, and service availability. Now CYSEC, in collaboration with technical teams at ESA, has managed to find that sweet spot where there is no longer a trade-off between security and performance to be made. 

Research showed in 2019 that using consumer electronic equipment can open the door to the ‘eavesdropping’ of sensitive information broadcasted by communication satellites. This could be personal data, such as names and addresses, but could equally involve the credentials of critical infrastructure such as power plants. Until now, satellite internet service providers have offered limited over-the-air encryption capabilities in their satellite networks because terrestrial techniques, like VPN, significantly impact the performance of the link. 

CYSEC worked with the ARTES 4S team to develop an innovative security product called ‘ARCA SATCOM’ aimed at solving the performance issue. “The patent-pending product uses TLS-based cryptography and hardware level security which when elegantly combined with a proxy accelerates the user traffic,” says Laurence Duquerroy, 4S Implementation Manager at ESA. “We set out to ensure data security without making any sacrifices on the user experience – and we succeeded!” 

Mathieu Bailly, Vice President at CYSEC says: “The attack on the Viasat commercial network last year demonstrated that we’re experiencing a paradigm shift in the space industry. Security is becoming a must-have now, even for commercial and governmental users. We believe that our product offers a winning combination of security and performance. “Working with ESA under the ARTES 4S contract allowed CYSEC to de-risk the development and bring a commercial product to the market that is fitting users’ requirements,” he adds.

Several ongoing pilots already

CYSEC are currently performing several pilots with early adopters of ARCA SATCOM to prove the repeatability of performance over various links and satcom terminals. They are also setting their sights on LEO (Low Earth Orbit) communications; the technology having originally been designed for GEO satellites. This augurs especially well with the growing development of private and public LEO constellations such as the EU’s coming IRIS2 constellation.

(PR - ES)