interestingengineering.com
By Bojan Stojkovski
Nov 23, 2025 02:26 PM EST
A new simulation by Chinese defense researchers suggests that jamming Starlink coverage over an area the size of Taiwan is technically possible.
Instead of focusing on whether Starlink can be jammed in theory, Chinese military planners are increasingly concerned with how such a feat could be attempted in a real conflict over Taiwan. The challenge is staggering: Taiwan and its allies could rely on a constellation of more than 10,000 satellites that hop frequencies, reroute traffic and resist interference in real time.
However, a recent simulation study by Chinese researchers delivers the most detailed public attempt yet to model a potential countermeasure.
Published on November 5 in the peer-reviewed journal Systems Engineering and Electronics, the paper concludes that disrupting Starlink across an area comparable to Taiwan is technically achievable – but only with a massive electronic warfare (EW) force.
Dynamic Starlink network poses major hurdle for EW
Rather than treating Starlink as a static system, Chinese researchers emphasize that its constantly shifting geometry is the real obstacle. In their peer-reviewed study, the team from Zhejiang University and the Beijing Institute of Technology notes that the constellation’s orbital planes are continuously changing, with satellites moving in and out of view at all times.
This dynamic behavior creates extreme uncertainty for any military attempting to monitor, track or interfere with Starlink’s downlink signals, the South China Morning Post reports. Unlike older satellite networks that depend on a few big geostationary satellites parked over the equator, Starlink behaves nothing like a fixed target.
Traditional systems can be jammed by simply overpowering the signal from the ground, but Starlink changes the equation. Its satellites are low-orbit, fast-moving and deployed by the thousands. A single user terminal never stays linked to just one satellite – it rapidly switches between several, forming a constantly shifting mesh in the sky. As the researchers explain, even if one link is successfully jammed, the connection simply jumps to another within seconds, making interference far harder to sustain.
Distributed jamming swarms seen as the sole viable method
Yang’s research team explains that the only realistic countermeasure would be a fully distributed jamming strategy. Instead of using a few powerful ground stations, an attacker would need hundreds – or even thousands – of small, synchronized jammers deployed in the air on drones, balloons or aircraft. Together, these platforms would form a wide electromagnetic barrier over the combat zone.
The simulation tested realistic jamming by having each airborne jammer broadcast noise at different power levels. Researchers compared wide‑beam antennas that cover more area with less energy to narrow‑beam antennas that are stronger but require precise aiming. For every point on the ground, the model calculated whether a Starlink terminal could still maintain a usable signal.
The Chinese researchers calculated that fully suppressing Starlink over Taiwan, roughly 13,900 square miles, would require at least 935 synchronized jamming platforms, not including backups for failures, terrain interference, or future Starlink upgrades. Using cheaper 23 dBW power sources with spacing of about 3 miles would push the requirement to around 2,000 airborne units, though the team stressed the results remain preliminary since key Starlink anti‑jamming details are still confidential.
| TechCrunch
techcrunch.com
Zack Whittaker
4:47 AM PST · November 12, 2025
Australia's intelligence chief warned that Chinese hackers are trying to break into its networks, sometimes successfully, to "pre-position" for sabotage ahead of an anticipated invasion of Taiwan.
Australia’s intelligence head Mike Burgess has warned that China-backed hackers are “probing” the country’s critical infrastructure, and in some cases have gained access.
Burgess, who heads the country’s main intelligence agency, the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation, said that at least two China government-backed hacking groups are pre-positioning for sabotage and espionage.
The comments, made during a conference speech in Melbourne on Wednesday, echo similar remarks by the U.S. government, which has warned that the ongoing hacking campaigns may pose risks of economic and societal disruption.
According to Burgess, a hacker group known as Volt Typhoon is trying to break into critical infrastructure networks such as power, water, and transportation systems. Burgess warned that successful hacks could affect energy and water supplies, and cause widespread outages.
The U.S. has previously said that the Chinese hackers have spent years planting malware on critical infrastructure systems that are capable of causing disruptive cyberattacks when activated. U.S. officials said that Volt Typhoon’s goals are to hamper the U.S.’ response to China’s anticipated future invasion of Taiwan.
“I do not think we — and I mean all of us — truly appreciate how disruptive, how devastating, this could be,” said Burgess, speaking about the threat. He said that once the hackers have access, what happens next is a “matter of intent, not capability.”
Burgess also warned that another China-backed hacking group dubbed Salt Typhoon, known for hacking into the networks of phone and internet companies to steal call records and other sensitive data, was also targeting the country’s telecoms infrastructure.
Salt Typhoon has hacked more than 200 phone and internet companies, according to the FBI, including AT&T, Verizon and Lumen, along with several other cloud and data center providers. The hacks prompted the FBI to urge Americans to switch to end-to-end encrypted messaging apps to avoid having their calls and text messages accessed by the hackers.
The Canadian government also confirmed earlier this year that its telcos were breached as part of China-linked attacks.
China has long denied the hacking allegations.
www.nsb.gov.tw
In recent years, the international community has shown growing concerns over cybersecurity issues deriving from China-developed mobile applications (apps). Governments and independent research institutions worldwide have already issued warnings concerning data breaches in users’ communication security. To prevent China from illegally acquiring personal data of Taiwan’s nationals, National Security Bureau (NSB) has reviewed cybersecurity reports from countries around the world and organized relevant information, as per the National Intelligence Work Act. Subsequently, the NSB informed and coordinated with the Ministry of Justice Investigation Bureau (MJIB) and the Criminal Investigation Bureau (CIB) under the National Police Agency to conduct random inspection on several China-developed mobile apps. The results indicate the existence of security issues, including excessive data collection and privacy infringement. The public is advised to exercise caution when choosing mobile apps.
The 5 China-developed apps selected for inspection, consisting of rednote, Weibo, TikTok, WeChat, and Baidu Cloud, are widely used by Taiwanese nationals. The MJIB and CIB adopted the Basic Information Security Testing Standard for Mobile Applications v4.0 announced by the Ministry of Digital Affairs, and evaluated the apps against 15 indicators under 5 categories of violation, consisting of personal data collection, excessive permission usage, data transmission and sharing, system information extraction, and biometric data access.
All 5 apps have shown serious violations across multiple inspection indicators. Notably, the rednote fails to meet all 15 inspection standards. Weibo and TikTok violate 13 indicators, separately, as well as 10 for WeChat and 9 for Baidu Cloud. These findings suggest that the said China-made apps present cybersecurity risks far beyond the reasonable expectations for data-collection requirement taken by ordinary apps.
All 5 China-made apps are found to have security issues of excessively collecting personal data and abusing system permissions. The violations include unauthorized access to facial recognition data, screenshots, clipboard contents, contact lists, and location information. As to the category of system information extraction, all apps were found to collect data such as application lists and device parameters. Furthermore, as far as biometric data are concerned, users’ facial features may be deliberately harvested and stored by those apps.
With regard to data transmission and sharing, the said 5 apps were found to send packets back to servers located in China. This type of transmission has raised serious concerns over the potential misuse of personal data by third parties. Under China’s Cybersecurity Law and National Intelligence Law, Chinese enterprises are obligated to turn over user data to competent authorities concerning national security, public security, and intelligence. Such a practice would pose a significant security breach to the privacy of Taiwanese users, which could lead to data collection by specific Chinese agencies.
A wide range of countries, such as the US, Canada, the UK, and India, have already publicly issued warnings against or bans on specific China-developed apps. The European Union has also launched investigations under the General Data Protection Regulation framework into suspected data theft involving certain China-made apps. Substantial amount of fines are imposed in those cases. In response to the cybersecurity threats, the Taiwanese government has prohibited the use of Chinese-brand products regarding computer and communications technology within official institutions. Both software and hardware are included.
The NSB coordinates with the MJIB and CIB to test the 5 inspected China-developed apps, and confirms that widespread cybersecurity vulnerabilities indeed exist. The NSB strongly advises the public to remain vigilant regarding mobile device security and avoid downloading China-made apps that pose cybersecurity risks, so as to protect personal data privacy and corporate business secrets.
The hacking group's X account shared videos comparing Xi Jinping to an emperor and others commemorating the 1989 Tiananmen Square demonstrations.
American intelligence officials believe the malware could give China the power to disrupt or slow American deployments or resupply operations, including during a Chinese move against Taiwan.
Operation Cache Panda went after software used by majority of industry players
