The Space Weather Enterprise Forum was held on June 8, 2010, at the National Press Club in Washington, DC. NASA, The National Aeronautic and Space Administration (NASA) and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) are the two U.S. agencies that track space weather in near-earth space and are the stars of this conference. “Space weather” is a term covering a number of phenomena primarily related to the interaction between solar activity and a planet’s geomagnetic field. An example is a solar flare that launches charged particles against the earth’s magnetic field, resulting in beautiful auroras at extreme latitudes and broadband interference with high-frequency radio communication.

What does this have to do with information system security? The information security triad is the protection of confidentiality, integrity, and availability (CIA). Space weather has everything to do with availability.

NASA warns that the sun will soon become much more active over the next couple of years, perhaps enough to cause geomagnetic storms of unprecedented strength, or to damage and disable the electrical and electronic systems on which modern civilization depends. The press conjures images of a doomsday scenario: emergency services, the financial infrastructure, electrical power generation and distribution, aviation and marine systems, satellite navigation, newer automobiles, home computers, and the Internet may all be rendered useless in a space weather event.

These disasters could theoretically happen. However, even Dr. Richard Fisher, the director of NASA’s Heliophysics division with 20 years at the agency, admitted that it was unlikely.

Space weather events have undesirable effects on electronics systems every day. The doomsday scenario is based on the convergence of a normal maximum in solar activity (which happens about every eleven years) with a solar “super storm” that typically occurs only a few times over the average human lifespan. “Space weather forecasting is still in its infancy,” admits Thomas Bogdan, director of NOAA’s Space Weather Prediction Center. There have been a number of large variations in typical solar cycle activity that have run counter to predictions, but the solar cycle is relatively regular and easy to predict compared to the solar super storms.

High Frequency (HF) radio operators depend on solar activity to energize the earth’s ionosphere so that long-range communications are possible. Some layers of the atmosphere stay energized for continuous communications, but some unusual (and very exciting) radio propagation occurs when solar storms energize the Es or “sporadic E” layer. Because of these phenomena, HF radio operators, including amateur radio operators or “hams”, track many dimensions of solar activity on a constant basis to determine which frequencies, modes, and directions are best suited for long-range radio communication.

The same space weather that could impact the systems mentioned in this article also cause Sporadic E energizing. Hams track solar weather, specifically sunspots, solar flares, CMEs (coronal mass ejections), and their affect on the A and K indices, for example, using web sites like these:

http://www.solen.info/solar/
http://www.hamqsl.com/solar.html

How good is recent solar activity prediction? Hams who specialize in tracking Solar Cycle 27, the current activity cycle, report disappointment. The general consensus for cycle 27 is low average activity, and peak cycle 27 activity well below that of recent cycle peaks, despite predictions to the contrary.

Recent solar activity peaks have been very high. Carbon-14 measurements show that modern maximums are above the Medieval Maximum that lasted for nearly 300 years. If it is truly a cycle, we should be expecting an average decrease. Even though the cycle will hit its peak in the next few years, the peak is likely to be a relatively weak one compared to others in the electronic age.

The key to the doomsday scenario is the combination of a relatively high cycle peak with a solar super storm, in which the Sun’s temperature reaches more than 10,000 degrees Fahrenheit and produces large amounts of magnetic and charged particle flux. The problem is that these storms are not predictable. Solar activity is directly proportional to electronic and communications problems: the more activity, the more probems. If the storm and high peak activity concide, this would be an exceptional — and exceptionally unlikely — case that could cause an exceptional number of problems.

While a solar “super storm” caused telegraph outages in 1859, most modern electronics are designed, tested, and sent to market in a time of historically high solar activity. While miniaturization and the nanometer processes used to manufacture modern computer chips could make some systems more vulnerable to such storms, there have also been improvements in circuit design, materials, grounding, and shielding that offset such vulnerabilities. These are important elements in modern system design, especially for critical infrastructure, military and defense, and especially in an age of exotic weapons such as tactical electromagnetic pulse (EMP) “bombs”. These design improvements eventually trickle down to consumer electronics, so your personal MP3 player is much less likely to stop working during a solar storm than a CB Radio from the 1970s.

Preparative measures are your best line of defense, including improved grounding, shielding, and other circuit protection mechanisms, as well as planning which backup systems and alternative methods are required during an outage. In a business continuity context, space weather is a natural disaster scenario similar to pandemic flu or a hurricane.

Space weather events are not a negligible threat. Like tornados, accurate prediction is difficult until the last minute, and there is no way of avoiding them once they happen. But in a world of limited resources, its significance in daily operations and the likelihood of an impact to vital information systems is small compared to the threats we face every day: software vulnerabilities, a lack of access controls, and criminals and fraudsters.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, June 22nd, 2010 at 6:28 am.

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