Moonlight Defender : Purple Teaming in Space!
Ben Hawkins
DEF CON 33 · Day 1 · Main Stage
This talk, "Moonlight Defender: Purple Teaming in Space!", delivered by Ben Hawkins, a Senior Research Engineer at Aerospace Corporation, delves into a critical initiative aimed at bridging the significant gap in cyber operator training and realistic cyber exercises within the U.S. Space Force. Hawkins highlights that while the Space Force focuses heavily on space operations, cyber security aspects are often neglected in training scenarios, leading to an unrealistic operational picture where space operators may be unaware of or unprepared for cyber effects. The Moonlight Defender program directly addresses this by integrating robust cyber red teaming and blue teaming into space-focused exercises.
AI review
Hawkins is doing genuinely novel work in a domain where almost nobody has real operational data: cyber exercises against actual on-orbit assets and space-adjacent ICS/OT infrastructure. The program architecture — live CubeSat in MD1, NOS3 simulation with virtual PLCs in MD2, custom rogue ground station tooling — is specific, honest about its own gaps, and directly tied to real Space Force training requirements. Not a research talk in the CVE-drop sense, but a credible case study with enough technical texture to earn its DEF CON slot.