Alert Issued to Space Companies Regarding Foreign Surveillance

On Friday, counterintelligence agencies in the United States issued a cautionary message to the American space industry, urging them to protect their research and trade secrets from foreign intelligence entities attempting to enhance their own nations’ space programs.

“We expect growing threats to this growing sector of the US economy,” a US counterintelligence official told Reuters, adding that “China and Russia are the leading foreign intelligence threats to the US space industry”.

The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), the National Counterintelligence and Security Center (NCSC) and the Air Force Office of Special Investigations (AFOSI) released a two-page statement that stated that unspecified foreign entities used cyber attacks and techniques such as strategic investments, joint ventures and acquisitions to gain access to the US space industry.

It’s the latest effort by Washington to raise awareness of an issue that has long plagued counterintelligence officials and has become a higher priority as the U.S. space industry spends billions of dollars developing new rockets and other technology.

The document warns companies to be vigilant about requests for site visits and companies to gather confidential information at conferences. It also said that individual employees were at risk of recruitment efforts through the provision of trips abroad or payments for consultancy work and proprietary information.

It urged companies to contact the FBI or AFOSI if they are concerned about being targeted, and to track “special cases” and establish “insider threat” programs as part of screening people in sensitive positions.

US officials have said for years that Chinese hackers are targeting US space expertise, including computers at NASA Goddard Space Center and the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, as well as numerous aerospace and satellite technology companies.

In 2019, Chinese national Tao Li was sentenced to 40 months in prison for conspiring to illegally export military and space technology to China, including radiation-hardened power amplifiers and circuits.

China says its space program is for peaceful purposes, but US military officials say Beijing sees space as crucial to its military strategy.

The United States warned this year that China was aiming to catch up with or overtake it as the space leader by 2045.