An Artist's impression of a CubeSat in spaceNASA JPL For the first time, a competition saw hackers break into a US Air Force satellite in orbit. It was part of an annual event held to stress-test the satellites against real security threats. This winners, the Italian team mHACKeroni, took home $50,000. Hackers managed to break into a US Air Force satellite in orbit, and took home prizes of up to $50,000 for exposing the vulnerabilities.Italian team mHACKeroni were the winners of the US Space Force annual "Hack-A-Sat" competition, which took place at the hacker international conference DEF CON in Las Vegas on Friday and Saturday.The event is designed to figure out gaps in US cyber defenses before they can be exploited by rival states like Russia and China.For the first time, the hackers were asked to attack a real satellite in space — the US Air Force Moonlighter, which was deployed specifically for the event.