SpiderOak and Axiom Space Demonstrate New Rust Enabled OrbitSecure Platform on International Space Station

SpiderOak, the leader in zero-trust space cybersecurity solutions, working through Axiom Space, the leading provider of commercial human spaceflight services is pleased to announce the successful demonstration of our next generation OrbitSecure software module re-written in the memory safe programming language Rust on the International Space Station (ISS). SpiderOak executed validation testing on July 1, proving efficacy and formally verifying Rust enabled data security capabilities in orbit while demonstrating the key modern cybersecurity requirements called for by Office of the National Cyber Director, The White House in a report published last February.

OrbitSecure is SpiderOak’s zero trust software-only solution designed to operate in extreme edge environments such as space securing information flow across disconnected, low-bandwidth, unsecure network conditions beyond the frontier of traditional cloud services.

Working through our strategic partner Axiom Space, the leading provider of commercial human spaceflight services and builder of the world’s first commercial space station, SpiderOak executed validation testing on July 1, proving efficacy and formally verifying Rust enabled data security capabilities in orbit. This latest test comes less than a year after the successful demonstration of OrbitSecure done in partnership with Axiom Space on the ISS in 2023.

Memory safe programming languages, like Rust, have been identified in President Biden’s National Cybersecurity Strategy as a key security building block in creating software systems that are secure by design.  It is estimated that memory safety bugs are responsible for up to 70% of security issues in code written in memory unsafe languages, and evidence shows memory safety vulnerabilities are nearly eliminated when large code bases are migrated to a memory safe language. Rust is a modern, memory-safe system featuring runtime and performance characteristics well-suited to the demands of spaceflight control systems.

In addition to Rust, OrbitSecure employs formal protocol validation written in the Alloy specification language to provide vastly greater assurance that OrbitSecure’s protocol performs exactly as designed across the network, eliminating entire categories of vulnerabilities.

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