- 28 minutes 1 secondThe shield in space.
The Ukraine has experienced a second major outage of its Starshield services reigniting questions about relying on a single private provider for critical national security services.
Host Maria Varmazis sits down Dave Bittner and Brandon Karpf to discuss the recent incident where Ukraine lost Starshield coverage. They explore how the growing role of private satellite companies in warfare creates challenges for establishing operational accountability and impacts US alliances.
Key Sources:
- Musk ordered Starlink slowdown that blindsided Ukraine.
- Starlink access in Ukraine a decision for Musk, not White House, Rubio says.
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25 October 2026, 5:00 am - 28 minutes 46 secondsExpanding America’s space capabilities.
Through Executive Orders, the Trump administration is looking ensure that America's space capabilities have the workforce and technological innovation needed for success.
Host Maria Varmazis sits down with Producer Ethan Cook to continue their conversation as they look at more space-related Executive Orders. While the previous episode looked at the orders that laid out the administration's broad space goals, this conversation looks at the orders that look to advance America's workforce and technical capabilities.
Key Sources:
Like what you heard? Be sure to subscribe to our free Signals and Space Briefing, our Sunday newsletter covering the intersection of cybersecurity and space. Subscribe at: https://thecyberwire.com/newsletters/signals-and-space Is there a topic or person you’d like to hear on our show? You can send your questions and feedback to [email protected]. You can also fill our our audience survey: https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/NJYCN2P
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18 October 2026, 5:00 am - 36 minutes 59 secondsOrdering a new space policy.
Since taking office, the Trump administration has signed a series of Executive Orders that aims to boost the US's space presence.
Host Maria Varmazis sits down with Producer Ethan Cook to dive into two recent Executive Orders signed by President Trump. These two orders look to significantly grow the US's space capabilities removing regulatory hurdles, encouraging innovation, and growing commercial investments.
Key Sources:
Like what you heard? Be sure to subscribe to our free Signals and Space Briefing, our Sunday newsletter covering the intersection of cybersecurity and space. Subscribe at: https://thecyberwire.com/newsletters/signals-and-space Is there a topic or person you’d like to hear on our show? You can send your questions and feedback to [email protected]. You can also fill our our audience survey: https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/NJYCN2P
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11 October 2026, 5:00 am - 16 minutes 30 secondsEarth’s expanding attack surface.
As space infrastructure expands, so too does the need for cybersecurity expertise beyond securing traditional spacecraft.
Host Maria Varmazis speaks with Milenko Starcik, Head of Cybersecurity at Vision Space, and Andrzej “Andy” Olchawa, Senior Cybersecurity Engineer also at Vision Space, about the growing space cybersecurity field. They discuss the role of compliance and auditing, how cybersecurity professional can develop space-specific skills, and how emerging capabilities are expanding the attack surface.
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Key Sources:
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4 October 2026, 5:00 am - 21 minutes 1 secondSpace cybersecurity starts on the ground.
Though spacecraft are important, space cybersecurity extends well beyond these assets touching ground stations, mission-control assets, and other critical components.
Host Maria Varmazis speaks with Milenk Starcik, Head of Cybersecurity at Vision Space, and Andrzej “Andy” Olchawa, Senior Cybersecurity Engineer also at Vision Space, about the broader space cybersecurity attack surface. By considering all aspects of a space mission, both in orbit and on the ground, cybersecurity professionals can better understand where vulnerabilities exist and what measures can be taken to reduce risk.
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Key Sources:
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27 September 2026, 5:00 am - 26 minutes 32 secondsDefending Space as Critical Infrastructure.
Space infrastructure has become an increasingly important part of everyday life, which has also made it an increasingly attractive target for exploitation.
Host Maria Varmazis and Sean MacKirdy, Area Vice President for the National Security vertical at Elastic Government Solutions, sit down to discuss how space stakeholders need to reevaluate their approach to securing space systems. As space systems continue to grow more important, malicious actors are going to look to target them more often. By adopting a stronger universal framework and a consistent way to interpret data across all spacecraft, space cybersecurity practitioners will be able to standardize their practices and create more effective and timely responses.
Key Sources:
- SPARTA v4.0
- Maria Varmazis interviews Brandon Bailey about Space Attack Research and Tactic Analysis, or SPARTA matrix.
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20 September 2026, 5:00 am - 22 minutes 22 secondsSpace's cybersecurity policy problem.
As space becomes increasingly connected and autonomous, effective cybersecurity policy is struggling to keep pace.
Host Maria Varmazis and Dr. Mac McGuire sit down to discuss the limitations of current approaches for managing space cyber risks and what the industry is lacking. The two discuss how the space incidents have the potential to significantly impact astronauts by disrupting oxygen systems, thermal regulation, and telemetry.
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13 September 2026, 5:00 am - 23 minutes 43 secondsWhen hackers control the clock.
The accurate timing data from spacecraft has become an invaluable tool for nearly every critical infrastructure sector and a greater target for malicious actors.
Host Maria Varmazis and Andy Davis, Global Research Director at the NCC Group, discuss the importance of timing in space. The two look at how timing systems have continued to grow more important in everyday life and why attackers have begun to increasingly exploit these critical services.
Key sources:
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6 September 2026, 5:00 am - 31 minutes 17 secondsClosing the space-cyber workforce gap.
Despite the space sector's consistent growth and greater importance as a critical infrastructure sector, finding cybersecurity talent is still proving to be a challenge.
Host Maria Varmazis and Nick Cohen, Principal Engineer at the Aerospace Corporation, sat down to discuss the current state of space's cybersecurity workforce. The two look at how the existing workforce is not large enough to effectively cover the industry and its infrastructure and how solutions like the Aerospace Village at DEF CON 34 have been aiming to address expertise shortcomings.
Key sources:
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30 August 2026, 5:00 am - 24 minutes 52 secondsBuilding a secure space internet.
As space infrastructure has continued to expand, developing secure space systems has become just as important as launching the spacecraft themselves.
In this week's episode, host Maria Varmazis sits down with Filip Rezabek, co-founder and CTO of Space Computer, to talk about some of the technologies being created to secure space infrastructure in orbit. The two discuss the importance of establishing a chain of trust in space and the challenges of securing hardware against supply chain attacks.
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23 August 2026, 5:00 am - 21 minutes 48 secondsAI, misinformation, and the future of cybersecurity.
As AI products proliferate, they continue to introduce new concerns, which have subtly eroded trust in imagery and content created by space-based infrastructure.
In this week's episode, host Maria Varmazis sits down with Dave Bittner and Brandon Karpf to look at Google's troubled implementation of Nano Banana 2 in Google Earth. The incident raises larger concerns regarding how AI systems are becoming deeper ingrained into everyday life despite their ability to be misused and spread misinformation.
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