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SPREAD SPECTRUM SATCOM
HACKING
ATTACKINGTHE GLOBALSTAR SIMPLEX DATA SERVICE
Colby Moore
@colbymoore - colby@synack.com
WHO AM I?
Colby Moore
Synack R&D
KD7SCT
Black Hat '15: Spread Spectrum Satcom Hacking: Attacking The GlobalStar Simplex Data Service
INTRODUCTION
MOTIVATION
• Try something new
• Satellite hacking often too
theoretical
• Unexplored frontier
• Systems are hopelessly
broken
• Inspire and collaborate
WHAT ARE WE GOINGTO
LEARN?
• RF signals and modulation
• What is spread spectrum?
• Selecting a target and
reverse engineering
• Exploiting the target
PREREQUISITES
• High school mathematical
knowledge
• Lets keep things relatively
“understandable”
• Will provide resources
(see github)
TARGETING
SELECTING ATARGET
GovernmentCommercial
• SPOT - Consumer grade satellite tracking
• Aging satellite network: voice, data, messaging
• But wait… this tech is used everywhere. Jackpot.
WHERE IS IT USED?
Military / Classified
Trailers / Containers
Air Quality Monitoring
PersonnelTracking
Fire Detection and Prevention
Water Quality Monitoring
Tank Level Gauging
Perimeter / Border monitoring
Asset / Vehicle Tracking
Remote Meters
Buoys
Ship Movement
Fishing vessel monitoring
Power line monitoring
Dispersed sensors
and many more…
SIMPLEX DATA NETWORK
“Simplex works where infrequent, small packets of data are to be collected”
GPS Satellite
Asset
Globalstar Satellite
Globalstar Ground StationThe Internet
Globalstar Infrastructure
User Infrastructure
BENT PIPE
“A bent pipe satellite does not demodulate or decode
the signal.A gateway station on the ground is
necessary to control the satellite and route traffic to
and from the satellite and to the internet.”
REDUNDANCY
• Yes, the network only talks in one direction (simplex)
• How is this reliable?
GROUND STATIONS AND
COMMAND CENTERS
Hundreds of ground stations Two Operations Centers
COVERAGE
48 satellites - 5850 km diameter footprint - 1410 km orbit - In service since 2000
SECURITY POSTURE
“Error 100: Database query failed - retrieving
login information You have an error in your
SQL Syntax;…”
NOT SO MUCH…
–Globalstar
“The received data is then forwarded to a user defined
network interface that may be in the form of an FTP
host or HTTP host where the user will interpret the data
for further processing.”
INTELLIGENCE GATHERING
WHERETO LOOK
PRIOR RESEARCH
Travis Goodspeed
https://github.com/travisgoodspeed/pyspot
Natrium42
https://web.archive.org/web/20120202211125/
http://natrium42.com/projects/spot/
STX-3
“Worlds’ smallest and lowest power consuming industrial-
use satellite transmitter”
DSSS? BPSK? What the &^#% is that?…
FREQUENCIES
Globalstar L-Band Frequencies
Globalstar Simplex Data Frequencies
THE BREAKTHROUGH
Clues!
REVIEW OF WAVES AND
MODULATION
WAVES
Amplitude - A
Phase - φ (radians)
Time (t)
Wavelength
TIME DOMAINVS.
FREQUENCY DOMAIN
Frequency DomainTime Domain
Amplitude
Time
Frequency
ANALOG MODULATION
• Amplitude Modulation (AM)
• Frequency Modulation (FM)
AMPLITUDE MODULATION
Carrier
Modulating Signal (Data)
Modulated Signal
FREQUENCY MODULATION
Carrier
Modulating Signal (Data)
Modulated Signal
DIGITAL MODULATION
• Amplitude Shift Keying (ASK / OOK)
• Frequency Shift Keying (FSK)
• Phase Shift Keying (PSK)
PHASE SHIFT KEYING (PSK)
Modulated Signal
Modulating Signal (Data)
0 0 1 1 0 1 1 1
0˚ 180˚ 0˚ 180˚
BPSK - Two phases (0 and 180 degrees) are used to represent 1 and 0
SPREAD SPECTRUM
SPREAD SPECTRUM
MODULATION
• Why is Spread Spectrum special?
• WiFi, Bluetooth, GPS, and basically all modern RF
communications
• Processing Gain
• Jam Resistant
• CDMA
SPREAD SPECTRUM
MODULATION
• Frequency Hopping Spread Spectrum (FHSS)
• Direct Sequence Spread Spectrum (DSSS)
DIRECT SEQUENCE SPREAD
SPECTRUM (DSSS)
• Mixes a slow signal with fast pseudo-random signal
• Signal still contains original information but occupies much
more bandwidth.
BPSK Signal
Occupies ~100Hz
Spread BPSK Signal
Occupies ~1.25Mhz
DSSS CONTD.
Data Signal
Pseudo Random
Result
000000000000 111111111111
110001111001 010000101000
110001000110 010000010111
⊕
⊕
DSSS CONTD.
Data Signal
Pseudo Random
Result
000000000000 111111111111
110001111001 010000101000
110001000110 010000010111
⊕
⊕
M-SEQUENCES AS PN CODES
• Periodic binary codes that have strong
autocorrelation properties
• Commonly generated with LFSRs
M-SEQUENCES AND
CORRELATION
0001
0001
0001
0010
0001
0100
0001
1000
4 0 0 0
M-Sequence:
Shifted:
Correlation:
This makes looking for the m-sequence in a signal easy!
DECODINGTHEORY
• Simple in practice. More difficult in theory
• Mix incoming signal with PN sequence and the original
BPSK signal will emerge.
• Compensate for frequency differential between local and
remote oscillators
• Signal needs to be phase aligned with PN code
HARDWARE
TOOLS AND HARDWARE
USRP B200
$675
GSP-1620 LHCP Antenna
$65
MORE HARDWARE
Dimension Engineering AnyVolt 3
$55
12v AC/DC Adapter
$5SMA Cables
$20
MiniCircuits ZX60-1614LN-S
Low Noise Amplifier
$150
ASSEMBLED CAPABILITY
SAMPLING
Nyquist: Sample at least
twice as fast as the signal’s
fastest frequency.
The human ear can’t hear frequencies higher than 20Khz.
CD audio is sampled at 44.1Khz (twice the human range).
IQ MODULATION
• Makes generation of signals easy in software!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h_7d-m1ehoY
Basics of IQ Signals and IQ modulation & demodulation - A tutorial
PN RECOVERY
WHATTO EXPECT
• Pseudo random sequence
(1s and 0s)
• Repeating
• 255 bits long
• 1.25 million “chips” per
second
Much like Bart in detention, the PN will
repeat over and over and over…
PN RECOVERY
• In order to decode the signal, we need to know the PN sequence
• DSSS BPSK == BPSK
BPSK DSSS
BPSK
LowFrequencyHighFrequency
SAMPLING REQUIREMENTS
32 Mhz
———— = 4 Mhz (> 1.25 x 2)
8 Mhz > 2x faster than 1.25 Mhz (Nyquist)
Even multiple of 32 Mhz (USRP)
4 Mhz 3.2 samples
—————— = —————— (not even)
1.25 Mcps 1 symbol
4 Mhz 5 4 samples
—————— x —— = —————
1.25 Mcps 4 symbol
Even samples / symbol
(Implementation Specific)
*We can resample the
signal from 4 to 5 Mhz.
*
PN RECOVERY
• PN Sequence is much shorter than bit length
• PN repeats 49 times for each bit
• PN ⊕ Data == PN (within a bit boundary)
1,250,000 chips 1 second 1 PN seq. 49 PN seq.
———————— x —————— x ————— = —————
1 second 100.04 bits 255 chips 1 bit
PN RECOVERY
PN RECOVERY
11111111001011010110111010101011
10010011011010011001101000111011
01100010001001111010010010000111
10001010011100011111010111100111
01000010101100101000101100000110
01000110000110111111011100001000
00100101010010111110000001110011
0001101010000000101110111101100
DESPREADING
WHATTO EXPECT
• Mix original signal with PN
• Narrow band signal will
emerge
• Shown as sharp spike on
FFT
REALTIME IS HARD
• Unfortunately doing this is very computational intensive
• Lots of room for optimizations
• Record now, process later
sh-­‐3.2#	
  time	
  python	
  sync.py	
  
real	
   0m58.326s	
  
user	
   0m48.754s	
  
sys	
  	
  	
  	
  0m0.909s
1.4 second capture (one packet)
4M samp/sec * 2 floats/samp * 4 bytes/float = 30.5 MB/sec
CORRELATION
Correlation
Time
Slide PN against data and correlate at each step.
CODETRACKING
Time (samples)
Correlation
Correlation Peak
If we don’t compensate for misalignment, we will drift and lose
correlation over time.
Search for
peaks, and track
themStrong Correlation (PN aligned)
No Correlation (PN unaligned)
Early
Late
Aligned
CODETRACKING
Time (samples)
Correlation
Early or late detection lets us keep track.
Positive and negative correlations
indicate bits!
Consistent Correlation (PN aligned)
DESPREAD SIGNAL
It works!
Mix the PN against the signal. Original signal appears.
DECODING
EXTRACTING DATA
Low Pass Filter
Rational Resampler
PSK Demodulator
Decoder
Signal
Time Domain
Frequency Domain
10100 0 0111 ……
PACKET FORMAT
000000101100101001101100011110100000010100000000010011110000000100000010000010000000000000000100000000000000000000000000000011001000001010010011
001 01001101100011110100000Manufacturer ID Unit ID
LOCATION DECODING
Latitude: bits 8:32
Longitude: bits 32:56 + -
Latitude
Northern
Hemisphere
Southern
Hemisphere
Longitude
Eastern
Hemisphere
Western
Hemisphere
Convert to decimal
(signed int MSB to LSB)
Multiply by degrees per
count
1.
2.
3.
CHECKSUM
Packet (without preamble and CRC)
110 bits
CRC
(Code Provided)
Compare
If we known how to reproduce the checksum, we can create our own
packets… no signing, no encryption, lets spoof!
000000101100101001101100011110100000010100000000010011110000000100000010000010000000000000000100000000000000000000000000000011001000001010010011
24 bits
INTERCEPTING ON
DOWNLINK
• Bigger antennas and better equipment
• RF downconversion
• Doppler Shift
• Multipath
Worst Case Doppler Shift
TRANSMITTING
DISCLAIMER
Transmitting on Globalstar’s frequencies may be illegal where you live and could
interfere with critical communications.
Donotdothis!
Seriously,don’t.
No one likes late night visits from the FCC.
TRANSMITTING
MGA-2000 0.5W RF Amplifier
$190.00
But if you like late night visits from the FCC…
• This is actually the easy part.
• ~.2 Watts power
• Simply mix data, PN, and carrier and correct rates
BUT WAIT… ITS EASIER
Spot Device Updater SPOT3FirmwareTool.jar
Currently $49.99
DOES IT WORK?
SpotTrace1 SpotTrace 2
Clone
IMPACT
EMERGENCY RESPONSE
Real Emergency
Fake Emergency
Overwhelm emergency
response center
anonymously?
WHERE ELSE?
BUT WAIT,THERE’S MORE
Lockheed Martin Flight Service (LMFS) Integration
CAPABILITY
Uplink Interception
RF Beam
Globalstar
Attacker
Attacker intercepts and
plots pattern of life
SPOOFING LOCATION
Planned Route
Hijack Route
Attacker hijacks truck, disables tracker,
transmits location as if delivery is on
track.
FalseLocationData
TESTINGTHE CAPABILITY
Reception
Window
DEMO
Video demo time. It’s better to not tempt the demo gods. ;)
CONCLUSIONS
"Like all companies and industries in the 21st century, including those that Wired
reported on this week to expose hacking vulnerabilities like Chrysler, GM, Brinks
and others, Globalstar monitors the technical landscape and its systems to protect
our customers. Our engineers would know quickly if any person or entity was
hacking our system in a material way, and this type of situation has never been an
issue to date.We are in the business of saving lives daily and will continue to
optimize our offerings for security concerns and immediately address any illegal
actions taken against our Company."
DISCLOSURE & RESPONSE
• ~180 days ago
• Friendly and concerned for user privacy, but no further
communication
NEXT STEPS
• Collaboration
• Code optimization - realtime
• Downlink interception
• Data aggregation
CONCLUSIONS
• Long lifecycle
• Unpatchable
• Security going forward
• DSSS != security
• Assume Insecure
• Act accordingly
• Higher standards
SPECIALTHANKS
Alex K., Chris W., Cyberspectrum Meetup, David C., Michael Ossmann,
Mom and Dad, Paul David,Tom Rondeau
The Interns
and
QUESTIONS / COMMENTS?
https://github.com/synack/globalstar
https://syn.ac/bh15satcom
@colbymoore
colby@synack.com
code
slides
twitter
email
IMAGE CREDITS
• http://images.google.com

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Black Hat '15: Spread Spectrum Satcom Hacking: Attacking The GlobalStar Simplex Data Service