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Cracker Endangered Astronauts

Posted by Hemos on from the bad-bad-things-to-do dept.

DAldredge was one of a huge number of people that wrote in with the news that the BBC has reported that a cracker(s) endangered the lives of astronauts in 1997 by "overloading NASA's communication system". Charming.

2 of 224 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Isn't the shuttle comms system isolated? by kzinti · · Score: 5

    Yes, it is. All the data systems within Mission Control are isolated within a LAN that has only a couple of connection points to the outside world. These connection points are guarded by firewall hardware. The firewalls allow only outgoing connections, and only then on a couple of ports. The machines connected to the outside of the firewalls only have a couple of services enabled, and only allow connections out to a limited set of IP addresses.

    Furthermore, all connections to the outside world -- both voice and data -- can be physically disconnected at the throw of a switch.

    A couple of years ago, a group I work with wanted to enable a new "tap" into the MCC telemetry systems. We wanted to allow outcoming data only, and proposed the same kind of firewall protection used by existing connection points. It still took nearly an act of Congress to get our tap installed.

    I've talked with NASA's information-security people, and they're nothing if not overcautious. They're not all technical geniouses, but they do employ some. For example, I know that they employ "white-hat" crackers to perform penetration tests of their systems.

    So, are NASA's security arrangements foolproof? Certainly not, but I have a hard time taking that article at face value. The suggestion that a cracker from somewhere out on the net penetrated NASA's systems doesn't seem as likely as other explanations: That the reporter got the story wrong -- that the problem wasn't actually within MCC. Or that there was a problem, but NASA's technical people, unable to come up with the real explanation, invented a cracker to blame. Or even that the cracker existed, but came from within the MCC.

    --Jim

  2. Shouldn't have brought him by dave · · Score: 5

    Heh, I'm surprised that you left out the obvious parallel with the time Homer caused havoc by bringing potato chips into space with him.

    Where's that Inanimate Carbon Rod when you need it? :)