Zero Trust in Orbit: Getting Satellite Security Off the Ground | Joe South
From Security Cocktail Hour by Joe Patti and Adam Roth
April 20, 2026 · 54 min · Episode 75
About this episode
Joe South discusses the state of communication satellite security and his doctoral research on improving it.
Joe South joins the Security Cocktail Hour to discuss the state of communication satellite security and the doctoral research he is doing to change it. Joe is Director of Cloud & AI Security at Abira Security and hosts the Security Unfiltered podcast, one of the larger independent cybersecurity podcasts. The conversation covers what satellite defense actually looks like today: why most of the security is at the ground station rather than on the satellite itself, what happens when CubeSats stay in orbit for 10 to 12 years without meaningful patching, and how a zero trust framework could be made to work on hardware that operates on less than three watts of power. Joe walks through his proposed approach, which combines TPM-based component authentication with a distributed trust ring across satellite orbits.We also get into cyber warfare and the attribution problem, the strategic implications of a compromised satellite fleet, and Joe's personal story about building self-sufficiency. If you work in cloud, infrastructure, or national security and have never had space in your threat model, this is a good place to start. Guest: Joe South, Director of Cloud & AI Security at Abira…
People in this episode
Hosts: Joe Patti, Adam Roth
Guest: Joe South
Topics covered
- satellite security
- zero trust framework
- cyber warfare
- communication satellites
- cloud security
- infrastructure security
Keywords
- satellite defense
- CubeSats
- TPM-based authentication
- distributed trust ring
- cybersecurity
- threat model
Mentioned in this episode
Organizations: Abira Security, Security Unfiltered, Capital Technology University
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