This time, Poland took second place in Hack-a-Sat, winning a prize of $30,000. Last year they took first place. The competition aimed to hack and partially take control of one of the American military satellites.

The United States Air Force and Space Force organized them. Poland Can Into Space again advanced to the finals of the 4th edition of the competition. It took second place in the 1st and 2nd editions, and won in the 3rd. More about particpants is here https://p4.team/. This year, apart from Poles, teams from the USA, Great Britain, Italy, and Germany advanced to the finals. Ultimately, the Italians won, receiving a prize of $50,000, ahead of Poles and Americans ($20,000).

4th edition

This year’s edition was the first during which the teams had to hack into satellites in space. The goal was to take partial control of the US Space Force’s Moonlighter objec. It has been in low Earth orbit since June this year. The teams were tasked with getting a connection to the satellite, taking pictures of the Earth using the devices on board, and repelling other teams’ attacks. Each task was carefully watched by the competition jury and scored. The organizers were impressed by the activities of the hacking teams. They even boasted on Twitter of photos that were taken during the competition. Thanks to the games, the American command diagnosed weak points in the software of the satellite control systems.

Space Force Captain Kevin Bernert said in an interview with Politico that the competition’s long-term goal is to raise awareness that cybersecurity needs to be built from scratch.

About previous success of Poland in Hack-a-Sat read here.