CON-trolling the Weather: Hacking Radiosondes
Paz Hameiri develops a simulation framework to spoof and jam weather balloon radiosonde telemetry, threatening global climate models and rocket launches.
Summary
The Critical Role of High-Altitude Weather Balloons
Meteorological agencies worldwide launch approximately 1,800 weather balloons daily, transmitting upper-atmosphere atmospheric telemetry used in global climate models and space launches.
Reverse Engineering Radiosonde Payloads
Paz Hameiri analyzes the RF protocols used by dominant radiosonde manufacturers, dissecting telemetry packets measuring pressure, humidity, temperature, and GPS coordinates.
Developing Spoofing and Jamming Simulation Tools
Using software-defined radio (SDR), Hameiri builds a simulation toolkit to forge radiosonde sensor broadcasts and execute targeted jamming against receiver ground stations.
Exposing Vulnerabilities in Military Radiosondes
The author discusses design weaknesses in military-grade radiosonde variants and proposes lightweight cryptographic authentication to prevent data tampering.
Related talks
Creator Stage·26 min
G. Longo · V. Lenders
Demonstrates practical RF attacks against TCAS II collision avoidance systems to forge resolution advisories and disable collision detection.
Aerospace Village·23 min
Harshad Sathaye
Explains the principles of GPS signal manipulation and reviews hands-on spoofing attack scenarios and receiver mitigation techniques.
Security Fest·39 min
SecurityFest 2019 explores Himanshu Mehta - RF Exploitation! Demystifying IoT OT hacks with SDR.