Computer Virus Hits International Space Station
Thursday August 28, 2008
According to MSNBC, NASA officials have no idea how a virus designed to swipe passwords from online gamers has suddenly shown up in some laptop computers aboard the international space station.
First detected on July 25, the worm, identified as W32.Gammima.AG, did not infect the space station's command and control computers and poses no threat to the station. According to NASA spokesperson Kelly Humphries, "This is basically a nuisance. We'll do our best to track down how it got there and close that gateway. This is not a frequent occurrence, but we have had viruses that have made their way on board before."
Image Credit: NASA
Comments
Astronauts are people too. Now we know what they do in there off time. I wonder which games are their favorites.
Space Invaders?
galaga
or maybe
defender
Sheez, all that money and they couldn’t buy a virus-proof Mac?
We’re all human and it happens. I guess it’s time to implement some new safe guards.
I thought there were safe gards in place to prevent this type of thing from happening. It goes to show: If someone really wants to do some damage, they will find a way.
Wow, that’s too bad. Things like this happen though, and it’s not surprising that eventually something would get picked up out/up there as well.
Maybe they are playing WoW or GuildWars? Hopefully nobody’s account got hacked.
Reply to Lois: Sept. 01, 2008 9:38PM
It’s NOT that Macs are immune to virus, etc. attacks. It IS that the Mac is just not as popular as Windows.
I’ve heard of Mac owners (through “Letters”,”Forums”,etc) who’ve had virus problems; though not as widespread as with Windows.
Hey! Maybe the guys aboard the space station are playing some of my favorite Star Wars games?