[FPSPACE] ISS hit with computer virus from Earth below

[Nick Watkins]

That sound you hear is William Gibson and Charlie Stross chuckling to themselves ...

Meanwhile, raises a Jonathan McDowell question if ever I saw one ...
Granted that this is not the first time a (persumably different) virus outbreak has occurred-how many would there have to have been before the number of manmade e-organisms that have reached space exceeds the number of natural ones ?

[On reflection I guess this is a non-starter as the number of different micro-organism species must swamp any such calculation ...]

Cheers

N

"Space has become a part of Man's world"-R M Nixon, July 1969.


--- On Thu, 28/8/08, Peter Pesavento <pjp961 at svol.net> wrote:

> From: Peter Pesavento <pjp961 at svol.net>
> Subject: [FPSPACE] ISS hit with computer virus from Earth below
> To: fpspace at friends-partners.org
> Date: Thursday, 28 August, 2008, 7:30 PM
> >From the Guardian (UK)
> 
>  
> 
> http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2008/aug/28/spacetechnology.spaceexplor
> ation
> 
>  
> 
> Computer virus infects orbiting space station
> 
> *	Damien Francis 
> *	 <http://www.guardian.co.uk/theguardian> The
> Guardian, 
> *	Thursday August 28 2008 
> 
> As far as space monsters go it is less menacing than Daleks
> or Klingons, but
> an unwanted intruder has made its way aboard the
> international space
> station. 
> 
> Gammima.AG, a malicious password-swiping computer virus,
> has broken new
> frontiers, by infecting two laptops on the ISS orbiting 215
> miles above
> Earth.
> 
> The virus was first detected on Earth in August 2007
> infecting machines to
> steal login names for popular online games.
> 
> Nasa officials have begun an investigation into how the
> virus made it aboard
> the ISS, but it is thought it might have been inadvertently
> carried into
> space on an astronaut's USB drive.
> 
> Reports suggested that once on board the station, the
> memory device was
> plugged into the computers, infecting them both.
> 
> Computers on the ISS are not directly connected to the
> internet but they
> have access to a satellite data link. They are not part of
> the space
> station's "command and control" network, Nasa
> said.
> 
> It is understood astronauts were using the laptops to
> compose email and
> store information on nutritional experiments.
> 
> Once it has scooped up passwords and login names Gammima.AG
> tries to send
> them back to a central server. It targets a total of 10
> online games most of
> which are popular in the Far East.
> 
> Nasa, who described the virus as a "nuisance" is
> now working with its
> international partners on the space station, including
> Russians, to find out
> how it got on board. Nasa spokesman Kelly Humphries said:
> "It's not a
> frequent occurrence, but this isn't the first
> time." 
> 
> The ISS is a joint project between Nasa, the European Space
> Agency, and the
> space agencies of Canada, Russia and Japan. It has been
> continuously manned
> by astronauts since 2000.
> 
>  
> 
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