Elon Musk warns Ukraine that SpaceX Starlink communication system could be easy target for Russia
‘Please use with caution,’ Elon Musk tweets
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Your support makes all the difference.SpaceX chief Elon Mush has warned that the company’s Starlink satellite internet communication system active in Ukraine could run a “high” risk of becoming an easy target for invading Russian forces.
“Important warning: Starlink is the only non-Russian communications system still working in some parts of Ukraine, so probability of being targeted is high,” Mr Musk tweeted on Friday.
“Please use with caution,” he added.
After Ukraine’s vice prime minister Mykhailo Fedorov urged Mr Musk last week to help them out, the SpaceX chief tweeted on Saturday that Starlink service was made active in Ukraine with “more terminals en route.”
Users on the ground could access broadband signals beamed back to earth using a kit sold by SpaceX, and Mr Fedorov took to Twitter to thank the SpaceX boss for the quick action.
The vice prime minister also asked the SpaceX chief for further assistance since Russia’s attacks on Ukrainian infrastructure made it harder for people in the country to keep the Starlink units online in connection with the internet.
Following this, Mr Musk said SpaceX is releasing a software update so that its receivers will require less energy, adding that the antennas should be able to work from a moving vehicle.
The SpaceX chief also advised users in Ukraine to turn on Starlink “only when needed,” and “place antenna away as far away from people as possible.”
Responding to a Twitter user’s query, Mr Musk also cautioned on Friday that Starlink could be under the threat of a cyberattack from Russia, adding that it was “Game on,” to prevent such an attack on the satellite communication system.
Experts have pointed out that Russia has historically used signals from satellite phones and communication systems to geolocate potential targets.
“Russia has decades of experience hitting people by targeting their satellite communications,” digital security expert John Scott-Railton tweeted on Sunday.
“In 1996, Chechen president Dzhokhar Dudayev was careful, but Russian aircraft reportedly found his satphone (satellite phones) call & killed him with a missile strike,” he added.
While in early phases of war, with disrupted internet, satellite internet may feel like a saviour, Mr Scott-Railton, who studies connectivity in conflicts, said it quickly introduces “very real, deadly new vulnerabilities.”
“If Putin controls the air above Ukraine, users’ uplink transmissions become beacons... for airstrikes,” he warned.
“If you don’t understand them, people die needlessly until they learn and adapt. This has happened again. And again,” the digital security expert added.
While Mr Scott-Railton noted that satellite phones operate differently from Starlink systems, he said the technology can still pose a risk.
Acknowledging that connectivity in Ukraine is necessary, the digital security expert said Starlink devices in the country, with “possible risks, are about to get battle-tested.”
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