Conference Program
CyberSat 2026 is the 10th annual edition of the only event purpose-built to protect space assets. As cyber threats accelerate and space systems become the backbone of critical infrastructure, CyberSat is where the operators, officials, engineers, and intelligence professionals actively defending the space domain convene for four days each November.
The Unclassified Program features two concurrent tracks: Business, Policy & Partnerships (BPP) — addressing the strategic, regulatory, and geopolitical forces shaping space cybersecurity — and Technology, Threats & Solutions (TTS) — delivering hands-on technical depth for cyber operators and engineers. The Classified Program (TS/SCI · NOFORN) is held separately at The Aerospace Corporation’s accredited SCIF in Chantilly, VA.
Aerospace Corporation SCIF, Chantilly VA
If you work in this specific niche area and can only attend one conference, CyberSat is definitely the one to choose.
Aviation and space are both safety-critical systems where cyber failures carry physical consequences. Drawing on her experience securing one of the world’s largest airlines and advising on national infrastructure resilience, DeFiore brings a rare operator’s perspective on cyber risk at the intersection of safety-critical systems and national security. She serves on the boards of the Internet Security Alliance and the Aviation ISAC, and was appointed to the President’s National Infrastructure Advisory Council (NIAC) in 2022.
Additional keynote speakers will be announced as the program is confirmed. Subscribe for updates →
November 2–3, 2026
Session details and speakers subject to change. All times Eastern. Both tracks run concurrently.
One of the most high-profile cybersecurity incidents this year saw McKinsey’s internal AI chatbot compromised by an AI agent, highlighting how autonomous AI attacks are becoming operational realities. As AI is integrated into satellite networks, mission systems, and enterprise environments, space organizations are reassessing how models, copilots, and automated systems can be exploited and defended. This panel examines offensive AI threats, AI-enabled cyber defense, and how commercial, government, and international operators are securely implementing AI across mission and security operations.
Satellites must maintain trusted identities and cryptographic integrity for years without physical access or maintenance. This session explores how Ring Oscillator Physical Unclonable Functions (RO PUFs) can provide a dependable Hardware Root of Trust for FPGA-based systems. Attendees will learn how device-unique identities, error correction, and secure key management can support authentication, attestation, and long-term mission resilience across the satellite lifecycle.
Cyber incident reporting requirements continue to expand, raising complicated questions for investigators and legal teams around materiality determinations, attorney-client privilege, law enforcement coordination, and time-sensitive disclosure obligations. Beyond initial incident reporting, organizations must also navigate data loss and unauthorized disclosures, often under tight deadlines and with limited resources. This Situation Room will bring participants together to discuss the business, legal, and operational challenges of managing cyber reporting requirements and how organizations are approaching them in practice.
The transition to post-quantum cryptography presents unique challenges for satellite communications, where bandwidth, latency, and packet constraints can significantly impact performance. This session explores practical approaches for deploying post-quantum TLS 1.3 in space environments, including hybrid cryptographic architectures, certificate optimization, hardware acceleration, and side-channel-resistant implementations. Attendees will gain insight into the engineering decisions required to balance security, performance, and mission requirements.
Aviation and space are both safety-critical systems where cyber failures carry physical consequences. Drawing on her experience securing one of the world’s largest airlines and advising on national infrastructure resilience, DeFiore brings a rare operator’s perspective on cyber risk at the intersection of safety-critical systems and national security.
At CyberSat Exchange, CISOs from leading space companies discussed the rapid evolution of the threat landscape — including an increase in Iranian cyber activity, growing AI-related risks, and the push toward cybersecurity-by-design architectures. As organizations transition toward smaller satellites, hybrid networks, and multi-orbit operations, this panel examines how the role of the Space CISO is evolving and what security leaders have learned from another year of geopolitical instability and operational cyber pressure.
CNSSP-12 established new cybersecurity expectations for national security space missions, increasing focus on protections that operate directly on orbit. Traditional security technologies were not designed for spacecraft environments where power, compute, and bandwidth are limited. This session provides an update on emerging intrusion detection capabilities being developed for space systems, including machine learning techniques designed to identify anomalous behavior across multiple portions of the attack surface while operating within mission constraints.
Orbital data centers and in-space compute are quickly becoming major discussion points across the global space industry. As compute workloads move into orbit, new cybersecurity, sovereignty, infrastructure protection, and regulatory challenges are emerging. This panel explores how governments, regulators, and commercial operators are approaching AI workloads, data governance, compliance, and operational resilience for the next generation of space compute infrastructure.
Artificial intelligence, autonomous systems, cyber operations, and space capabilities are evolving simultaneously. The result is a rapidly changing operational environment where decisions, attacks, and responses increasingly occur at machine speed. This session explores how emerging technologies may reshape future conflict, examining potential second- and third-order effects for military, commercial, and national security space operators.
Cyber resilience testing often occurs late in the development cycle, when fixes are more expensive and schedule risk is higher. This session demonstrates how NASA’s Operational Simulator for Space Systems (NOS3) and CryptoLib can be combined to create a realistic cyber test range for spacecraft operations — using digital twins to evaluate secure command and telemetry behavior, rehearse cyber response scenarios, and identify vulnerabilities before flight.
Space systems are not the only connected environments where cyber failures can create operational and physical consequences. Through his work across aviation, maritime, IoT, and critical infrastructure, ethical hacker Ken Munro brings a real-world view of how vulnerabilities surface in complex systems, and what it takes to find, disclose, and address them before they become mission-level risks.
At CyberSat 2025, the NRO publicly discussed a new national cyber program for the first time, reflecting the growing urgency around defending space infrastructure and national security architectures. At the same time, initiatives such as Golden Dome are reshaping conversations around missile defense, cyber resilience, and commercial-government collaboration. This panel examines how U.S. space security priorities are evolving, how partnerships with allied nations and industry are changing, and what emerging cyber defense and mission assurance initiatives mean for operators, integrators, and technology providers.
Firmware tampering, device spoofing, and supply chain compromise are becoming major concerns for satellite operators. Traditional pre-launch validation provides only a point-in-time assessment of trust and cannot detect compromise after deployment. This session explores how Hardware Roots of Trust, measured boot, cryptographic attestation, and cyber-resilient recovery architectures can provide continuous assurance throughout a satellite’s lifecycle and support trusted operations in orbit.
Cybersecurity requirements for satellite ground infrastructure are rapidly evolving as governments and regulators introduce new compliance frameworks designed to protect critical communications infrastructure. Standards such as EN 18031 cybersecurity standard in Europe and the Cybersecurity Maturity Model Certification (CMMC) framework in the United States are expected to significantly impact how teleport operators design, operate, and secure their networks.
Join us for a 90-minute collaborative choose-your-own-cybersecurity adventure in outer space. We will explore the full spectrum of cybersecurity decision making within the context of a realistic space system, its mission, and its threats. Can I Red Team an operational satellite, and if so, are these the droids I am looking for? To SEIM, or not to SEIM on orbit? Should you bother threat hunting where no LAN has gone before? Patch the bird? Accept the risk? Pay the space pirate’s ransom? Registration opens July 20
A scenario-driven exercise stress-testing incident response across the full space architecture. Commercial operators, government stakeholders, and intelligence community professionals work through real-world multi-vector threat scenarios together. Runs concurrently as a separate add-on event with limited capacity.
Learn more and register for the TTX →Space-based communications, imaging, and monitoring are becoming increasingly mainstream. Sectors including energy, agriculture, defense, and transportation rely on space technology to keep their infrastructures secure. This session explores the relationship between critical infrastructure end users and space systems, and how those dependencies will evolve as adversaries target both simultaneously.
AI-enabled space systems introduce new security challenges that span development, deployment, operations, and governance. Yet many organizations continue to treat engineering standards, AI controls, cloud security, and detection operations as separate disciplines. This session demonstrates how IEEE P3536, CSA AICM, CCM, and SSRM can be combined into a unified framework for securing AI-enabled missions, correlating telemetry, and improving threat detection across both orbital and ground environments.
One of the most high-profile cybersecurity incidents this year saw McKinsey’s internal AI chatbot compromised by an AI agent, highlighting how autonomous AI attacks are becoming operational realities. As AI is integrated into satellite networks, mission systems, and enterprise environments, space organizations are reassessing how models, copilots, and automated systems can be exploited and defended. This panel examines offensive AI threats, AI-enabled cyber defense, and how commercial, government, and international operators are securely implementing AI across mission and security operations.
At CyberSat Exchange, CISOs from leading space companies discussed the rapid evolution of the threat landscape — including an increase in Iranian cyber activity, growing AI-related risks, and the push toward cybersecurity-by-design architectures. As organizations transition toward smaller satellites, hybrid networks, and multi-orbit operations, this panel examines how the role of the Space CISO is evolving and what security leaders have learned from another year of geopolitical instability and operational cyber pressure.
Orbital data centers and in-space compute are quickly becoming major discussion points across the global space industry. As compute workloads move into orbit, new cybersecurity, sovereignty, infrastructure protection, and regulatory challenges are emerging. This panel explores how governments, regulators, and commercial operators are approaching AI workloads, data governance, compliance, and operational resilience for the next generation of space compute infrastructure.
At CyberSat 2025, the NRO publicly discussed a new national cyber program for the first time, reflecting the growing urgency around defending space infrastructure and national security architectures. At the same time, initiatives such as Golden Dome are reshaping conversations around missile defense, cyber resilience, and commercial-government collaboration. This panel examines how U.S. space security priorities are evolving, how partnerships with allied nations and industry are changing, and what emerging cyber defense and mission assurance initiatives mean for operators, integrators, and technology providers.
Space-based communications, imaging, and monitoring are becoming increasingly mainstream. Sectors including energy, agriculture, defense, and transportation rely on space technology to keep their infrastructures secure. This session explores the relationship between critical infrastructure end users and space systems, and how those dependencies will evolve as adversaries target both simultaneously.
Satellites must maintain trusted identities and cryptographic integrity for years without physical access or maintenance. This session explores how Ring Oscillator Physical Unclonable Functions (RO PUFs) can provide a dependable Hardware Root of Trust for FPGA-based systems. Attendees will learn how device-unique identities, error correction, and secure key management can support authentication, attestation, and long-term mission resilience across the satellite lifecycle.
The transition to post-quantum cryptography presents unique challenges for satellite communications, where bandwidth, latency, and packet constraints can significantly impact performance. This session explores practical approaches for deploying post-quantum TLS 1.3 in space environments, including hybrid cryptographic architectures, certificate optimization, hardware acceleration, and side-channel-resistant implementations. Attendees will gain insight into the engineering decisions required to balance security, performance, and mission requirements.
CNSSP-12 established new cybersecurity expectations for national security space missions, increasing focus on protections that operate directly on orbit. Traditional security technologies were not designed for spacecraft environments where power, compute, and bandwidth are limited. This session provides an update on emerging intrusion detection capabilities being developed for space systems, including machine learning techniques designed to identify anomalous behavior across multiple portions of the attack surface while operating within mission constraints.
Artificial intelligence, autonomous systems, cyber operations, and space capabilities are evolving simultaneously. The result is a rapidly changing operational environment where decisions, attacks, and responses increasingly occur at machine speed. This session explores how emerging technologies may reshape future conflict, examining potential second- and third-order effects for military, commercial, and national security space operators.
Cyber resilience testing often occurs late in the development cycle, when fixes are more expensive and schedule risk is higher. This session demonstrates how NASA’s Operational Simulator for Space Systems (NOS3) and CryptoLib can be combined to create a realistic cyber test range for spacecraft operations — using digital twins to evaluate secure command and telemetry behavior, rehearse cyber response scenarios, and identify vulnerabilities before flight.
Firmware tampering, device spoofing, and supply chain compromise are becoming major concerns for satellite operators. Traditional pre-launch validation provides only a point-in-time assessment of trust and cannot detect compromise after deployment. This session explores how Hardware Roots of Trust, measured boot, cryptographic attestation, and cyber-resilient recovery architectures can provide continuous assurance throughout a satellite’s lifecycle and support trusted operations in orbit.
AI-enabled space systems introduce new security challenges that span development, deployment, operations, and governance. Yet many organizations continue to treat engineering standards, AI controls, cloud security, and detection operations as separate disciplines. This session demonstrates how IEEE P3536, CSA AICM, CCM, and SSRM can be combined into a unified framework for securing AI-enabled missions, correlating telemetry, and improving threat detection across both orbital and ground environments.
Secure Your Place. Early Bird Expires August 21.
Four days. Two programs. One mission. The space security community’s essential annual gathering.