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On 24 February 2022, a cyberattack on the consumer-focused part of Viasat’s KA-SAT satellite broadband network knocked thousands of customers offline in Ukraine and tens of thousands more across Europe. The attack disabled modems by overwriting data in their memory; it did not physically destroy them. The disruption also limited remote monitoring and control for thousands of wind turbines, although they continued generating electricity.
What happened in the KA-SAT cyberattack?
The attack affected a specific consumer-oriented partition of Viasat’s KA-SAT network. Viasat said several thousand customers in Ukraine and tens of thousands of additional fixed-broadband customers across Europe lost service. The incident began at about 03:02 UTC on 24 February 2022, when Viasat detected malicious traffic from modems or customer-premises equipment in Ukraine.
The outage was not a failure of every Viasat satellite service. Viasat said its directly managed mobility and government users, as well as its other networks, were not affected. The incident instead disrupted customers connected through the affected KA-SAT partition.
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Viasat’s incident account describes an intrusion into ground-based network infrastructure, rather than damage to a satellite in orbit. Investigators identified a misconfigured VPN appliance as the entry point. From there, the attacker moved laterally into a trusted management segment used to operate the network.
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- 🚫 NO WiFi INCLUDED - ROUTER REQUIRED: This is a modem ONLY. You MUST buy a separate WiFi router to get wireless internet. Without a router, only ONE device can connect via Ethernet cable. This does NOT replace your current WiFi router.
- 🔌 CABLE INTERNET REQUIRED: Works EXCLUSIVELY with cable internet service (DOCSIS) from providers like Xfinity, Spectrum, or Cox. Will NOT work with fiber (Verizon FiOS, AT&T), DSL, satellite, or fixed wireless internet. Contact your ISP to confirm compatibility BEFORE purchasing.
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- 💡 SETUP REQUIREMENTS: You need: (1) Cable internet service, (2) Separate WiFi router with 2.5 Gbps port for full speeds, (3) ISP activation. This modem cannot create WiFi networks or connect multiple devices without additional equipment.
- Entry: The attacker exploited a misconfigured VPN appliance to access ground-based systems.
- Movement: The attacker moved from the initial foothold into a trusted network segment used for network management.
- Disruption: Using legitimate management commands, the attacker overwrote key data in the flash memory of many residential modems at once.
- Effect: The modems lost network access. They were not permanently physically damaged, but required a factory reset or replacement to restore service.
Because the commands were issued through management infrastructure, a compromise on the ground could disable large numbers of remote terminals without physically reaching them. Viasat described the commands as legitimate but targeted, and said they were used against residential modems simultaneously.
How many customers and systems were affected?
Reported figures describe different service providers, countries, and types of impact. They should not be added together: the customer counts come from separate distributors and geographies and may overlap.
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- 🔌 CABLE INTERNET REQUIRED: Works EXCLUSIVELY with cable internet service (DOCSIS) from providers like Xfinity, Spectrum, or Cox. Will NOT work with fiber (Verizon FiOS, AT&T), DSL, satellite, or fixed wireless internet. Contact your ISP to confirm compatibility BEFORE purchasing.
- 🚀 MULTI-GIG PERFORMANCE: Supports internet plans up to 2.5 Gbps with 2.5 Gbps Ethernet port. Designed for plans 1 Gbps and faster from certified providers: Xfinity (up to 2.33 Gbps), Spectrum (1 Gbps), Cox (2 Gbps). Verify your plan speed and provider compatibility.
- 💡 SETUP REQUIREMENTS: You need: (1) Cable internet service, (2) Separate WiFi router with 2.5 Gbps port for full speeds, (3) ISP activation. This modem cannot create WiFi networks or connect multiple devices without additional equipment.
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| Reported impact | What the figure describes | Source and year |
|---|---|---|
| Nearly 9,000 subscribers | Orange/Nordnet customers affected by the outage. | Orange/Nordnet, 2022 |
| About one-third of 40,000 subscribers | bigblu customers across Germany, France, Hungary, Greece, Italy, and Poland. | Eutelsat, 2022 |
| About 5,800 wind turbines; 11 gigawatts of combined output | Enercon turbines in Germany and Central Europe lost some remote monitoring and control capability. The turbines continued producing energy. | Enercon, 2022 |
| Tens of thousands of modems affected; nearly 30,000 replacement modems shipped | The first figure describes the scale of disrupted terminals; the second is Viasat’s reported shipment of replacement modems to distributors during recovery. | Viasat, 2022 |
Why were wind turbines affected?
Some Enercon turbines relied on satellite connectivity for remote monitoring and control. When that connection was disrupted, operators had a more limited ability to monitor and control thousands of wind-power converters remotely. Enercon said those functions were available only to a limited extent during the disruption.
This was a downstream industrial effect of losing communications, not evidence that the turbines themselves were attacked or stopped generating electricity. Enercon reported that the turbines continued to produce power; the limitation concerned remote oversight and control.
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Was Russia responsible?
The UK’s National Cyber Security Centre assessed that Russia was almost certainly responsible for the attack and said it began about an hour before Russia’s major invasion of Ukraine. Denmark’s Ministry of Defence separately said it had credible information attributing the destructive attack to Russia, describing Ukrainian armed-forces communications as the intended target.
These are government assessments of responsibility and intent, not a criminal-court judgment. They should also be kept distinct from the technical account: Viasat described how the attacker entered ground-based systems and disabled modems, while the UK and Danish authorities made separate attribution assessments.
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- Works with any Wi-Fi router: Connect any Wi-Fi router to this modem's Ethernet port to support all your wireless devices.
- Ethernet connections: 1 Gigabit Ethernet port connects to your computer or separate Wi-Fi router.
- Modem technology: Engineered with 32x8 channel bonding, OFDM 2x2, and DOCSIS 3.1.
How quickly was service restored?
Viasat said the network was largely stabilized within hours and fully stabilized within several days. Affected modems could be recovered by factory reset or replaced. Viasat worked through distributors to support customers because it did not generally transact directly with end users; it later reported shipping nearly 30,000 replacement modems to distributors during recovery.
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