It seems you can’t escape computer viruses not even on the International Space Station. NASA announced that several laptops that were carried to the ISS in July were infected with a virus known as Gammima.AG, and also admitted that such infections have happened before.
“This is not the first time we have had a worm or a virus,” NASA spokesman Kelly Humphries said. “It’s not a frequent occurrence, but this isn’t the first time.”
The virus, which copies itself onto computers in order to steal log-on information for online games, was first detected in August 2007. After stealing the private information, including usernames and passwords, the worm attempts to send it back to a central computer.
W32.Gammima.AG propagates by copying itself to removable media. According to Symantec, Gammima.AG, also known as Worm.Win32.AutoRun.bhx [Kaspersky], attempts to steal sensitive information for the following online games: ZhengTu, Wanmi Shijie or Perfect World, Dekaron Siwan Mojie, HuangYi Online, Rexue Jianghu, ROHAN, Seal Online, Maple Story, R2 (Reign of Revolution) and Talesweaver.
It affects all the Windows versions and Symantec noted that the number of known infections is in 0 to 49 range.
As the computers on the space station use a satellite data link to transmit information and e-mails, NASA officials said that there was no way that data on the laptops could be sent to hackers on Earth. NASA also told space news website SpaceRef that no command or control systems of the ISS were at risk from the malicious program.
NASA is currently working with partners on the ISS to find out how the virus found its way into the laptops. The space station’s computers reportedly do not have any anti-virus software installed on them to prevent infection with viruses.
One theory is that the virus was on a flash or USB drive that an astronaut owned and carried with him to the space station.
The space agency said it planned to put in place security systems that would prevent such incidents from happening in the future.
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