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Shuttles Safe?
Mike "Ender Wiggin" Hudack, Editor
Government Accounting Office (GAO) officials have announced that vital NASA computers are vulnerable to attack from the outside. NSA hackers (under GAO supervision) used publicly available tools such as war dialers and port scans to identify vulnerabilities in NASA positioning control computers -- the same computers that guide the space shuttles.
GAO officials stated that orbital control computers used for satellite direction are not vulnerable, however, because they´re on a closed-loop system. The fact remains, however, that the same was said about Los Alamos computers -- and they were vulnerable.
If crackers take control of these systems during a space shuttle mission, it could spell disaster for both the astronauts and NASA. OSAll hasn´t been able to confirm that these systems would directly affect a shuttle mission. Rumor has it, however, that they could.
OSAll contacted officials at NASA who declined to comment on the latest string of security holes at the agency. You may recall that several workstations have been compromised in the past, along with more public website hacks during such events as the Mars landing.
GAO has recommended that NASA create a five-point Information Security policy, hilighting the following points:
- Assessing risks
- Implimenting policies & controls
- Monitoring compliance with policy
- Computer security training for staff
- Coordinating responses to security incidents
Interestingly, NASA conducted a special review of Information Security in 1998 which identified the same vulnerabilities as the latest GAO report. The fixes recommended by the NASA team were not carried out, however. GAO is insisting upon compliance with security protocol.
OSAll is currently speaking with an anonymous source inside NASA about this story. In addition, the GAO report is now available online. |
