Starlink is undeniably very innovative design. With its lights and shadows that we have reckoned with over time, it is true that the creation of a network providing global broadband Internet access is a laudable project. And whether we like it or not, the Internet is a key element in more and more activities, so slow access to systems or, worse, disconnection, creates a gap that widens every day.

Ton the technical side, the project seems pretty neat too. It is true that the saturation of low orbit is becoming a very serious problem and that it can make us very angry every day, but at least until today we have to admit that the incidents in which it was seen involved SpaceX. , except late last year with the Chinese space station, all systems were working properly.

Now it seems that as complex as the Starlink system is, it also has its black spots, and security researcher Lennert Wouters seems to have found one of them, as according to on his twitter profile, managed to build a device to gain access to the service. And as he explained, said device it only cost him $25not bad considering that today a device costs €639.00 plus a €99 monthly fee to connect to the service from Spain.

Equipment manufactured by Wouters was tested at the Def Con 30 security conference, which takes place between yesterday, Thursday and next Sunday, and as he had previously assumed, since we can assume that he would have tried it on several occasions, he was able to establish a connection practically immediately and start from this way of using the Starlink satellite Internet access service. In addition, the researcher made his plans available to the public mod chip on GitHub.

Wouters did the hack as part of SpaceX’s program that pays researchers to find bugs in the Starlink service and in a quick response, SpaceX congratulated the researcher on the discovery and announced that it had released an update to its software to fix the problem. However, Wouters told Wired that Starlink will remain vulnerable to hackers until SpaceX creates a new version of the main chip in the terminals.

#BringOnTheBugs – We love working closely with security researchers! Special shout out to @LennertWo for an amazing presentation! https://t.co/jdhYaherNX

We are hiring! If you’re a cool engineer and love space, check out https://t.co/Z6ha1EtgYE

— Christopher Stanley  (@cstanley) August 11, 2022