The National Institute of Standards and Technology has issued a guidance document on how commercial satellite ground segment operators can apply the agency’s cybersecurity framework to protect their command and control systems.
NIST’s new guide published Tuesday offers a baseline profile meant to help organizations identify security risks to satellite ground infrastructure assets, protect systems, respond to confidentiality breaches involving telemetry, tracking and command data and recover from an anomaly.
The profile is designed to support mission operations and payload control centers of the segment, as well as to complement risk management approaches by public and private sector stakeholders in the field.
NIST developed the guidance in accordance with the government’s Space Policy Directive 5.
The publication of “NIST Interagency Report (IR) 8401″ was a collaborative project that involved biweekly workshops during the second half of 2021 with contributions from Mitre, Microsoft, Airbus, Lockheed Martin, Fortinet, Kratos Defense & Security Solutions, EPRi, Waite SLTS and Utah State University Space Dynamics Laboratory.
