The unoccupied space-facing port on the International Space Station’s Harmony module is pictured several hours before the SpaceX Dragon Freedom spacecraft would relocate there after undocking from Harmony’s forward port.
NASA Johnson Space Center
In the race to conquer the cosmos, the greatest challenge to space exploration might be the vastness of the unknown, but that distance from planet Earth isn’t dissuading the invisible hands of cybercriminals aiming to sabotage missions from thousands of miles below.
Spacecraft, satellites, and space-based systems all face cybersecurity threats that are becoming increasingly sophisticated and dangerous. With interconnected technologies controlling everything from navigation to anti-ballistic missiles, a security breach could have catastrophic consequences.
“There are unique constraints to operating in space where you do not have physical access to spacecraft for repairs or updates after launch,” said William Russell, director of contracting and national security acquisitions at the U.S. Government Accountability Office. “The consequences of malicious cyber activities include loss of mission data, decreased lifespan or capability of space systems or constellations, or the control of space vehicles.”
Critical space infrastructure is susceptible to threats across three key segments: in space, on the ground segment and within the communication links between the two. A break in one can be a cascading failure for all, said Wayne Lonstein, co-founder and CEO at VFT Solutions, and co-author of Cyber-Human Systems, Space Technologies, and Threats. “In many ways, the threats to critical infrastructure on Earth can cause vulnerabilities in space,” Lonstein said. “Internet, power, spoofing and so many other vectors that can cause havoc in space,” he added.
AI risks in mission critical systems
The integration of artificial intelligence into space projects has heightened the risk of sophisticated cyber attacks orchestrated by state actors and individual hackers. AI integration into space exploration allows more decision-making with less human oversight.
For example, NASA is using AI to target scientific specimens for planetary rovers. However, reduced human oversight could make these missions more prone to unexplained and potentially calamitous cyberattacks, said Sylvester Kaczmarek, chief technology officer at OrbiSky Systems, which specializes in the integration of AI, robotics, cybersecurity, and edge computing in aerospace applications.
Data poisoning, where attackers feed corrupted data to AI models, is one example of what could go wrong, Kaczmarek said. Another threat, he said, is model inversion, where adversaries reverse-engineer AI models to extract sensitive information, potentially compromising mission integrity. If compromised, AI systems could be used to interfere with or take control of strategically important national space missions.
“AI systems may be susceptible to unique types of cyberattacks, such as adversarial attacks, where malicious inputs are designed to deceive the AI into making incorrect decisions or predictions,” Lonstein said. AI could also enable adversaries to “carry out sophisticated espionage or sabotage operations against space systems, potentially altering mission parameters or stealing sensitive information,” he added.
The Quetzal-1 CubeSat is seen as it deploys from the JEM Small Satellite Orbital Deployer aboard the International Space Station.
NASA Johnson Space Center
Worse yet, AI can be weaponized — used to develop advanced space-based weapons or counter-space technologies that could disrupt or destroy satellites and other space assets.
The U.S. government is tightening up the integrity and security of AI systems in space. The 2023 Cyberspace Solarium Commission report stressed the importance of designating outer space as a critical infrastructure sector, urging enhanced cybersecurity protocols for satellite operators.
Lonstein recommends rigorous testing of AI systems in simulated space conditions before deployment, and redundancy as a way to safeguard against an unexpected breach. “Implement redundant systems to ensure that if one AI component fails, others can take over, thus maintaining mission integrity and functionality,” he said.
Use of strict access controls, authentication, and error correction mechanisms can further ensure that AI systems operate with accurate information. There are reactive measures for when even these defenses have been breached, through the design of AI systems with fail-safe mechanisms that can revert to a “safe state” or “default mode” in the event of a malfunction or unexpected behavior, Lonstein said. Manual override is important, too. “Ensure that ground control can manually override or intervene in AI decision- making, when necessary, providing an additional layer of safety,” he added.
U.S.-China competition
The rivalry between the U.S. and China includes the new battleground of space. As both nations ramp up their space ambitions and militarized capabilities beyond Earth’s atmosphere, the threat of cyberattacks targeting critical orbital assets has become an increasingly pressing concern.
“The competition between the U.S. and China, with Russia as a secondary player, heightens the risk of cyberattacks as these nations seek to gain technological superiority,” Kaczmarek said.
Though they don’t garner as much attention in the mainstream press as consumer, crypto or even nation-state hacks against key U.S. private and government infrastructure on the ground, notable cyberattacks have targeted critical space-based technologies in recent years. With the U.S., China, Russia and India intensifying their push for space dominance, the stakes have never been higher.
There were repeated cyberattacks this year on Japan’s space agency JAXA. In 2022, there were hacks on SpaceX’s Starlink satellite system, which Elon Musk attributed to Russia after the satellites were supplied to Ukraine. In August 2023, the U.S. government issued a warning that Russian and Chinese spies were aiming to steal sensitive technology and data from U.S. space companies such as SpaceX and Blue Origin. China has been implicated in numerous cyber-espionage campaigns dating back as far as a decade, such as the 2014 breach of the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration weather systems, jeopardizing space-based environmental monitoring.
“Nations like China and Russia target U.S. space assets to disrupt operations or steal intellectual property, potentially leading to compromised missions and a loss of technological edge,” Kaczmarek said.
Space-based systems increasingly support critical infrastructure back on Earth, and any cyberattacks on these systems could undermine national security and economic interests. Last year, the U.S. government let hackers break into a government satellite as a way to test vulnerabilities that could be exploited by the Chinese. That came amid growing concerns at the highest levels of the government that China is attempting to “deny, exploit or hijack” enemy satellites — revelations that became public in the leak of classified documents by U.S. Air National Guardsman Jack Teixeira in 2023.
“The ongoing space race and the associated technologies will continue to be impacted by Viasat-like cyberattacks,” said GAO’s Russell, referring to a 2022 cyberattack against the satellite company attributed by U.S. and U.K. intelligence to Russia as part of its war against Ukraine.
Big Tech’s space-based cloud
Private companies and the government will need to use all the cybersecurity tools at their disposal, including encryption, intrusion detection systems, and collaboration with government agencies like the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency for intelligence sharing and coordinated defense.
“These collaborations can also involve developing cybersecurity frameworks specifically tailored to space systems,” Kaczmarek said.
At the same time, Silicon Valley-based tech companies have been making rapid advancements in the field of cybersecurity, including those designed to secure space technologies. Companies like Microsoft, Amazon, Google, and Nvidia are increasingly being enlisted by the U.S. Space Force and Department of Defense for their specialized resources and advanced cyber capabilities.
Notably, Microsoft is a founding member of the Space Information Sharing and Analysis Center and has been an active participant since its formation several years ago. “Microsoft has partnered with the U.S. Space Force to support their growth as a fully digital service, bringing the latest technologies to ensure Space Force Guardians are prepared for space-based conflicts,” said a Microsoft spokesperson via email.
As part of the $19.8 million contract, Microsoft provides its Azure cloud computing infrastructure, simulations, augmented reality, and data management tools to support and secure a wide range of Space Force missions. “Microsoft is playing a key role in defending against cyber threats in space,” the spokesperson wrote.
Google Cloud, Amazon Web Services and defense contractor General Dynamics also offer cloud infrastructure for storing and processing vast amounts of data generated by satellites and space missions.
Nvidia‘s powerful GPUs can be used for processing and analyzing satellite imagery and data. According to Lonstein, the chipmaker’s AI chips can enhance image processing, anomaly detection, and predictive analytics for space missions. But there is a limit to reliance on technology in space operations as a safety benefit rather than added layer of risk.
“High dependency on automated systems can lead to catastrophic failures if those systems malfunction or encounter unexpected scenarios,” Lonstein said.
A single point of failure could compromise the entire mission. Moreover, extensive use of technology could be detrimental to human operators’ skills and knowledge, which might atrophy if not regularly exercised.
“This could lead to challenges in manual operation during emergencies or system failures,” Lonstein added.
Piotr Swat | Lightrocket | Getty Images
AppLovin CEO Adam Foroughi provided more clarity on the ad-tech company’s late-stage effort to acquire TikTok, calling his offer a “much stronger bid than others” on CNBC’s The Exchange Friday afternoon.
Foroughi said the company is proposing a merger between AppLovin and the entire global business of TikTok, characterizing the deal as a “partnership” where the Chinese could participate in the upside while AppLovin would run the app.
“If you pair our algorithm with the TikTok audience, the expansion on that platform for dollars spent will be through the roof,” Foroughi said.
The news comes as President Trump announced he would extend the deadline a second time for TikTok’s Chinese-owned parent company ByteDance to sell the U.S. subsidiary of TikTok to an American buyer or face an effective ban on U.S. app stores. The new deadline is now in June, which, as Foroughi described, “buys more time to put the pieces together” on AppLovin’s bid.
“The president’s a great dealmaker — we’re proposing, essentially an enhancement to the deal that they’ve been working on, but a bigger version of all the deals contemplated,” he added.
AppLovin faces a crowded field of other interested U.S. backers, including Amazon, Oracle, billionaire Frank McCourt and his Project Liberty consortium, and numerous private equity firms. Some proposals reportedly structure the deal to give a U.S. buyer 50% ownership of the company, rather than a complete acquisition. The Chinese government will still need to approve the deal, and AppLovin’s interest in purchasing TikTok in “all markets outside of China” is “preliminary,” according to an April 3 SEC filing.
Correction: A prior version of this story incorrectly characterized China’s ongoing role in TikTok should AppLovin acquire the app.
U.S. President Donald Trump speaks during an event announcing new tariffs in the Rose Garden at the White House in Washington, April 2, 2025.
Chip Somodevilla | Getty Images
President Donald Trump announced an aggressive, far-reaching “reciprocal tariff” policy this week, leaving many economists and U.S. trade partners to question how the White House calculated its rates.
Trump’s plan established a 10% baseline tariff on almost every country, though many nations such as China, Vietnam and Taiwan are subject to much steeper rates. At a ceremony in the Rose Garden on Wednesday, Trump held up a poster board that outlined the tariffs that it claims are “charged” to the U.S., as well as the “discounted” reciprocal tariffs that America would implement in response.
Those reciprocal tariffs are mostly about half of what the Trump administration said each country has charged the U.S. The poster suggests China charges a tariff of 67%, for instance, and that the U.S. will implement a 34% reciprocal tariff in response.
However, a report from the Cato Institute suggests the trade-weighted average tariff rates in most countries are much different than the figures touted by the Trump administration. The report is based on trade-weighted average duty rates from the World Trade Organization in 2023, the most recent year available.
The Cato Institute says the 2023 trade-weighted average tariff rate from China was 3%. Similarly, the administration says the EU charges the U.S. a tariff of 39%, while the 2023 trade-weighted average tariff rate was 2.7%, according to the report.
In India, the Trump administration claims that a 52% tariff is charged against the U.S., but Cato found that the 2023 trade-weighted average tariff rate was 12%.
Many users on social media this week were quick to notice that the U.S. appeared to have divided the trade deficit by imports from a given country to arrive at tariff rates for individual countries. It’s an unusual approach, as it suggests that the U.S. factored in the trade deficit in goods but ignored trade in services.
The Office of the U.S. Trade Representative briefly explained its approach in a release, and stated that computing the combined effects of tariff, regulatory, tax and other policies in various countries “can be proxied by computing the tariff level consistent with driving bilateral trade deficits to zero.”
“If trade deficits are persistent because of tariff and non-tariff policies and fundamentals, then the tariff rate consistent with offsetting these policies and fundamentals is reciprocal and fair,” the USTR said in the release.
Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella speaks during the Microsoft Build conference at Microsoft headquarters in Redmond, Washington, on May 21, 2024.
Jason Redmond | AFP | Getty Images
A half-century ago, childhood friends Bill Gates and Paul Allen started Microsoft from a strip mall in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Five decades and almost $3 trillion later, the company celebrates its 50th birthday on Friday from its sprawling campus in Redmond, Washington.
Now the second most valuable publicly traded company in the world, Microsoft has only had three CEOs in its history, and all of them are in attendance for the monumental event. One is current CEO Satya Nadella. The other two are Gates and Steve Ballmer, both among the 11 richest people in the world due to their Microsoft fortunes.
While Microsoft has mostly been on the ascent of late, with Nadella turning the company into a major power player in cloud computing and artificial intelligence, the birthday party lands at an awkward moment.
The company’s stock price has dropped for four consecutive months for the first time since 2009 and just suffered its steepest quarterly drop in three years. That was all before President Donald Trump’s announcement this week of sweeping tariffs, which sent the Nasdaq tumbling on Thursday and Microsoft down another 2.4%.
Cloud computing has been Microsoft’s main source of new revenue since Nadella took over from Ballmer as CEO in 2014. But the Azure cloud reported disappointing revenue in the latest quarter, a miss that finance chief Amy Hood attributed in January to power and space shortages and a sales posture that focused too much on AI. Hood said revenue growth in the current quarter will fall to 10% from 17% a year earlier
Nadella said management is refining sales incentives to maximize revenue from traditional workloads, while positioning the company to benefit from the ongoing AI boom.
“You would rather win the new than just protect the past,” Nadella told analysts on a conference call.
The past remains healthy. Microsoft still generates around one-fifth of its roughly $262 billion in annual revenue from productivity software, mostly from commercial clients. Windows makes up around 10% of sales.
Meanwhile, the company has used its massive cash pile to orchestrate its three largest acquisitions on record in a little over eight years, snapping up LinkedIn in late 2016, Nuance Communications in 2022 and Activision Blizzard in 2023, for a combined $121 billion.
“Microsoft has figured out how to stay ahead of the curve, and 50 years later, this is a company that can still be on the forefront of technology innovation,” said Soma Somasegar, a former Microsoft executive who now invests in startups at venture firm Madrona. “That’s a commendable place for the company to be in.”
When Somasegar gave up his corporate vice president position at Microsoft in 2015, the company was fresh off a $7.6 billion write-down from Ballmer’s ill-timed purchase of Nokia’s devices and services business.
Microsoft is now in a historic phase of investment. The company has built a $13.8 billion stake in OpenAI and last year spent almost $76 billion on capital expenditures and finance leases, up 83% from a year prior, partly to enable the use of AI models in the Azure cloud. In January, Nadella said Microsoft has $13 billion in annualized AI revenue, more even than OpenAI, which just closed a financing round valuing the company at $300 billion.
Microsoft’s spending spree has constrained free cash flow growth. Guggenheim analysts wrote in a note after the company’s earnings report in January, “You just have to believe in the future.”
Of the 35 Microsoft analysts tracked by FactSet, 32 recommend buying the stock, which has appreciated tenfold since Nadella became CEO. Azure has become a fearsome threat to Amazon Web Services, which pioneered the cloud market in the 2000s, and startups as well as enterprises are flocking to its cloud technology.
Winston Weinberg, CEO of legal AI startup Harvey, uses OpenAI models through Azure. Weinberg lauded Nadella’s focus on customers of all sizes.
“Satya has literally responded to emails within 15 minutes of us having a technical problem, and he’ll route it to the right person,” Weinberg said.
Still, technology is moving at an increasingly rapid pace and Microsoft’s ability to stay on top is far from guaranteed. Industry experts highlighted four key issues the company has to address as it pushes into its next half-century.
Microsoft didn’t respond to a request for comment.
Regulation
There’s some optimism that the Trump administration and a new head of the Federal Trade Commission will open up the door to the kinds of deal-making that proved very challenging during Joe Biden’s presidency, when Lina Khan headed the FTC.
But regulatory uncertainty remains.
It’s not a new risk for Microsoft. In 1995, the company paid a $46 million breakup fee to tax software maker Intuit after the Justice Department filed suit to block the proposed deal. Years later, the DOJ got Microsoft to revamp some of its practices after a landmark antitrust case.
Microsoft pushed through its largest acquisition ever, the $75 billion purchase of video game publisher Activision, during Biden’s term. But only after a protracted legal battle with the FTC.
At the very end of Biden’s time in office, the FTC opened an antitrust investigation on Microsoft. That probe is ongoing, Bloomberg reported in March.
Nadella has cultivated a relationship with Trump. In January, the two reportedly met for lunch at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida, alongside Tesla CEO Elon Musk.
President Donald Trump shakes hands with Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella during an American Technology Council roundtable at the White House in Washington on June 19, 2017.
Nicholas Kamm | AFP | Getty Images
The U.S. isn’t the only concern. The U.K.’s Competition and Markets Authority said in January that an independent inquiry found that “Microsoft is using its strong position in software to make it harder for AWS and Google to compete effectively for cloud customers that wish to use Microsoft software on the cloud.”
Microsoft last year committed to unbundling Teams from Microsoft 365 productivity software subscriptions globally to address concerns from the European Union’s executive arm, the European Commission.
Noncore markets
Fairly early in Microsoft’s history the company became the world’s largest software maker. And in cloud, Microsoft is the biggest challenger to AWS. Most of the company’s revenue comes from corporations, schools and governments.
But Microsoft is in other markets where its position is weaker. Those include video games, laptops and search advertising.
Mary Jo Foley, editor in chief at advisory group Directions on Microsoft, said the company may be better off focusing on what it does best, rather than continuing to offer Xbox consoles and Surface tablets.
“Microsoft is not good at anything in the consumer space (with the possible exception of gaming),” wrote Foley, who has covered the company on and off since 1984. “You’re wasting time and money on trying to figure it out. Microsoft is an enterprise company — and that is more than OK.”
It’s unlikely Microsoft will back away from games, particularly after the Activision deal. Nearly $12 billion of Microsoft’s $69.6 billion in fourth-quarter revenue came from gaming, search and news advertising, and consumer subscriptions to the Microsoft 365 productivity bundle. That doesn’t include sales of devices, Windows licenses or advertising on LinkedIn.
“As a company, Microsoft’s all-in on gaming,” Nadella said in 2021 in an appearance alongside gaming unit head Phil Spencer. “We believe we can play a leading role in democratizing gaming and defining that future of interactive entertainment, quite frankly, at scale.”
AI pressure
Microsoft has an unquestionably strong position in AI today, thanks in no small part to its early alliance with OpenAI. Microsoft has added the startup’s AI models to Windows, Excel, Bing and other products.
The breakout has been GitHub Copilot, which generates source code and answers developers’ questions. GitHub reached $2 billion in annualized revenue last year, with Copilot accounting for more than 40% of sales growth for the business. Microsoft bought GitHub in 2018 for $7.5 billion.
Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella, right, speaks as OpenAI CEO Sam Altman looks on during the OpenAI DevDay event in San Francisco on Nov. 6, 2023.
Justin Sullivan | Getty Images
But speedy deployment in AI can be worrisome.
The company is “not providing the underpinnings needed to deploy AI properly, in terms of security and governance — all because they care more about being ‘first,'” Foley wrote. Microsoft also hasn’t been great at helping customers understand the return on investment, she wrote.
AI-ready Copilot+ PCs, which Microsoft introduced last year, aren’t gaining much traction. The company had to delay the release of the Recall search feature to prevent data breaches. And the Copilot assistant subscription, at $30 a month for customers of the Microsoft 365 productivity suite, hasn’t become pervasive in the business world.
“Copilot was really their chance to take the lead,” said Jason Wong, an analyst at technology industry researcher Gartner. “But increasingly, what it’s seeming like is Copilot is just an add-on and not like a net-new thing to drive AI.”
Innovation
At 50, the biggest question facing Microsoft is whether it can still build impressive technology on its own. Products like the Surface and HoloLens augmented reality headset generated buzz, but they hit the market years ago.
Teams was a novel addition to its software bundle, though the app’s success came during the Covid pandemic after the explosive growth in products like Zoom and Slack, which Salesforce acquired. And Microsoft is still researching quantum computing.
In AI, Microsoft’s best bet so far was its investment in OpenAI. Somasegar said Microsoft is in prime position to be a big player in the market.
“To me, it’s been 2½ years since ChatGPT showed up, and we are not even at the Uber and Airbnb moment,” Somasegar said. “There is a tremendous amount of value creation that needs to happen in AI. Microsoft as much as everybody else is thinking, ‘What does that mean? How do we get there?'”
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