WASHINGTON — ManTech has launched a new service it calls “Space Range” aimed at government agencies and satellite operators looking to protect their networks and identify where they have weak spots.

The Space Range is a virtual satellite command and control center with hardware in the loop. Red teams perpetrate network attacks to help find hidden vulnerabilities and software bugs. The system was created to “help protect U.S. military, intelligence community and commercial space assets from virulent cyberattacks,” the company said May 4 in a news release.

The space wargaming product is ManTech’s latest effort to expand its cybersecurity business to the space domain.

ManTech developed a “Cyber Range” in 2009 for the Department of Defense and has adapted the product for other customers like financial services institutions.

The concern for space operators is that threats are spread across satellites and ground systems, and organizations need to be able to identify vulnerabilities across the entire ecosystem, said Damian DiPippa, senior vice president and general manager of ManTech’s Mission & Intelligence Solutions Group.

“From a cyber perspective, it’s almost as if everybody’s kind of fixing and protecting their own little piece of the cyber threat. The problem is that everything in space is so interconnected,” he said. “It’s not just the satellite in isolation, not just the ground terminal isolation but nobody really owns the end to end architecture.”

DiPippa said the Space Range was designed to provide “customers with the knowledge to prevent and defeat real world attacks.”

Quelle: SN