Indiana University researchers will help the country - and the world - better understand the intersection of space and cybersecurity through a three-year $575,000 grant from the Air Force Office of Scientific Research, the basic research arm of the Air Force Research Laboratory. This high-profile collaboration will bring together leading cybersecurity and space researchers, practitioners and policymakers to build the foundations for a vision that addresses the geopolitical and technological trends shaping cyberspace, along with a grand strategy for space-cyber power in the 21st century.
"So much of our daily lives are dependent on space - from checking the weather to getting directions - and a lot of that infrastructure was put into space before cybersecurity was a pressing concern," said Scott Shackelford, executive director of the Center for Applied Cybersecurity Research and the Ostrom Workshop and Provost Professor of Business Law and Ethics at the Kelley School of Business. "At the highest level of geopolitics, we want to determine how like-minded and allied countries can work together and find common ground with adversaries to secure this vulnerable infrastructure for everyone and avoid a worst-case scenario during a future conflict."
Researchers at IU and their collaborators from academia, government and industry will develop white papers, or informational documents, that cover various aspects of space-cyber power, following a research agenda developed by IU's Space Governance Lab. Ultimately, the white papers will be combined into a book laying the foundations for a theory of space-cyber power.
Additionally, workshops will convene at the IU Advancement Center in Washington, D.C., with many of the country's top space and cybersecurity experts. Many of those experts have participated in the Kelley Space-Cybersecurity Digital Badge program, a first-of-its-kind academic program focused exclusively on space governance and space cybersecurity. IU students, who will serve as research assistants on the project, will also have an opportunity to participate in these meetings.
The war in Ukraine - which saw a Russian cyberattack disrupt Viasat's services in Ukraine and hundreds of cyberattacks on critical infrastructure, including space-based infrastructure - led many experts to point to an urgent need to build resilience in space infrastructure. Eytan Tepper, IU visiting professor and director of the Space Governance Lab, said it is the "first space-cyber war" and has called for new regimes and policies that could reduce risks of future warfare in this arena.
"There has never been a more critical time for countries to have updated policies that protect their space infrastructure from advanced cyberattacks," Tepper said. "At the same time, we need to develop a grand strategy on the accumulation and projection of space-cyber power and influence in a world defined by multipolar geostrategic competition, and this new project will do just that. We see great potential with this project and are excited to lead the way in developing a strategy for the space-cyber nexus."
Space governance is an emerging area for IU's Ostrom Workshop, which was previously awarded funding from Carnegie, Microsoft and the National Science Foundation to support its space cybersecurity work. Recently, the workshop also received a $200,000 award from Google.org and Berkeley to fund a postdoctoral researcher who will conduct empirical cybersecurity research over the next two years.
