Space worm causes concern
NASA virus on the loose
COMPUTER VIRUSES have now made it all the way into space – there really is nowhere safe.
NASA laptops which were carried to the international space station back in July have been exposed by space news website, SpaceRef as infected with a virus named Gammima.AG.
The virus lies in wait on contaminated machines ready to steal login names from popular games to send back to a central server.
The infected laptops apparently, and rather stupidly, do not have any kind of anti-virus software installed – this was really a disaster waiting to happen.
Suspicion says that the virus most likely passed through an astronauts USB drive, however NASA is working with the ISS to work out exactly how this happened.
Plans are now in place to implement security systems which should stop this happening in the future. µ
Comments
They had a virus?
Sounds like they are running the wrong OS.Mutation
Perhaps the virus is a result of mutation: some bits flipped in some binaries by cosmic rays passing through the purported USB drive?If so, tell Microsoft. It might offer a quicker way to evolve a stable OS than the company's current model.
Microsoft in space. Set the controls for the heart of the sun.
NOOBS
Hahaha NASA you guys are noobs! Thats like forgetting to put oxygen on the space shuttle before it takes off...Statistics and Probability... How many differnt viruses are out there, versus the ammount of computers, chance of getting infected and types of media a virus can travel through? The odds arent to good... LOL try that math problem on for size you genius's.. And to all you flamers Im sure they'res more to that equation than what I listed...so die in a tire fire.Makes you wonder..
What do you think would happen if, and this is a huge if, the virus shutdown the station and astro's died? I wonder what kind of policies would take place. "International Astro's die on space station due to computer virus." Maybe penalties for writing virus' would become huge. What do you guys think?Gammina AG is OLD
It dosn't say much about NASA security when Older virus steals ship. How long have they flown unprotected? What could that perpetrator do will all those passwords? Star Wars, Obviously.Check Whereabouts of Luke Skywalker & Harrison Ford.
Those Peoples(NASA) are in real trouble.ISS Coming Down....5th Grader Claims Credit or Pay 1, no, ten bubble gums 'er elsk.Hahahaahhh byebye.
STeWie drashek.
really
if you are as powerful as NASA, and you still decide to use Windows, you got bigger problems then computer viruses."If you believe, they put a man on the moon, man on the..."
Good greif!
What kind of muppets to NASA employ? Next they'll be employing my Nan to pilot the shuttle, and she never learnt to even drive a car.Oh, and she's been dead a few years.
I'm sure that won't be held against her.
Deliberate act of sabotage
The aliens from Independence Day are getting revenge for us uploading a virus to the mother ship: this could well be the prelude to another invasion, people.If the aliens shared our lax security policies, it would explain how we were able to infect them. This time they'll probably have the firewall turned on, wi-fi disabled, and be running a recent copy of AVG Free.
pls
The critical computers that control flight and such don't run windows you fools, it's just their laptops.Yes! Macs
Some of them are running Macs up there, and guess what?Considering that NASA has said that they've had virus's before...
Space Virus vs N.A.S.A.
SO sad. The pervious writer is right. THIS could have been a DISASTER. No need for going further on that score. Question, Have you people at N.A.S.A. ever heard of Linux, OR better still ( better security ) BSD?For the rest of us, This was probably worse than was reported, they never tell the whole story. We know that. A matter of "In the PUBLIC'S interest".
man on the moon
ISS will not fall of the sky because some windows laptop crashed (that may happen to FAA thought)In fact it would not be affected at all. It is like your speedometer brakes while you drive - what happens - nothing, you still make it from point A to p.B, and C if you like to. Not to mention that there are several 'speedometers' on board.
NASA is just operating the ISS, engineers that build it have some brains for sure.
Crucial operations are not entrusted to computers running any 'popular' OS.
And they have several identical - just in case.
On top of that I think Russians are actually charged with flying it.
And BTW: I really think they put a man on the moon.