Thales Chosen to Design Galileo Satellite Security
Galileo Industries and the European Space Agency (ESA), both in charge of the global architecture of the EUR 3.2B ($4.2B) European Galileo satellite system, have chosen Thales’ advanced security expertise to specify and design the security policy for the EU’s Galileo satellite project. Security requirements include communications security, which entails protecting networks and signals; authentication and access control for each level of service; data confidentiality and integrity control; and attack prevention. Contract figures were not announced.
Intended for civilian and commercial users as well as government applications, Galileo must ensure optimum security at all levels to achieve complete and reliable service. The EU is hoping Galileo will provide an alternative to the Pentagon-controlled Global Positioning System (GPS), and also tap a growing worldwide demand for satellite communications that it believes may be worth as much as EUR 300 billion by 2020. See Thales release, and all DID coverage of the Galileo Program.
