As Spiegel.de currently reports, the hack on the ViaSat satellite network seems to have been carried out in a very targeted manner. The background is probably the war in Ukraine, since the provider offers fast internet connections there. The network also controls thousands of German wind turbines. The hints of the mirror speak for a professional hack.
Apparently, according to Spiegel.de, the provider ViaSat has been struggling with network failures since the beginning of the Russian attack on Ukraine. As a result, Internet coverage in Ukraine in particular is disrupted by the satellite service provider that offers its KA-SAT service there. However, the disturbances also spread to the entire system. Thus, it is not or was not possible to control thousands of German wind turbines. The wind turbines continued to supply electricity and were connected to the grid normally, but remote maintenance was not possible.
Thousands of German wind turbines as collateral damage
A quote: “One suspects a “connection to the Ukraine conflict,” according to an internal paper by the federal government that is available to SPIEGEL. Representatives of several German authorities had previously exchanged views with the listed US satellite operator. In doing so, Viasat reported "that in the Central/Eastern Europe segment, the terminals of commercial customers were sabotaged." Publicly, Viasat had so far only said that a "cyber event" was suspected to be behind the failures."
Experienced hacker or professional attack
The attack path chosen by the hackers is unusual, complex and requires a very high level of know-how: The hackers manipulated a software update with malware and placed it on the update server. This was then distributed automatically and caused the system or the gateway stations in the Ukraine to fail. These distribute access to the Internet via satellite as a KA-SAT offer. More on this at Spiegel.de.
More at Spiegel.de