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International Space Station Infected With Malware Carried By Russian Astronauts

Posted by samzenpus on from the click-here-if-you-want-air dept.

DavidGilbert99 writes "Nowhere is safe. Even in the cold expanse of space, computer malware manages to find a way. According to Russian security expert Eugene Kaspersky, the SCADA systems on board the International Space Station have been infected by malware which was carried into space on USB sticks by Russian astronauts."

15 of 226 comments (clear)

  1. Linux... by ZiakII · · Score: 5, Insightful

    From the article As these systems are based on Linux, they are open to infection.

    What system is not open to infection...

    1. Re:Linux... by dukeblue219 · · Score: 5, Insightful

      To geeks it sounds like an uninformed attack on linux's security, but I think what the author means to say is "these are not proprietary custom-designed systems, but are based on a common Earthly operating system and thus may have known vulnerabilities."

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    2. Re:Linux... by UnknowingFool · · Score: 5, Insightful

      I took that as either a lack of knowledge or bias. In the next few paragraphs they talk about Stuxner which was a Windows worm. Linux is by no means perfectly secure. Nothing is. I would take the track record of Linux over Windows any day.

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    3. Re:Linux... by marcello_dl · · Score: 5, Interesting

      My question instead is "What linux system automounts usb drives without the noexec flag", or "how on hell did whatever program get executed by the onboard systems". Did the malware reside on some personal device and exploited some remote weakness on the systems which i guess give network access to get the much needed email and lolcat pic of the day?

      But I'm too lazy for TFA so I'll pass with a "meh".

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    4. Re:Linux... by freezin+fat+guy · · Score: 5, Insightful

      If the author of the comments were as unbiased as you it might indeed mean that.

      However, he makes money telling Windows users they will be safe if they remember to pay him their fees. Not the same protection racket from the Linux crowd so I'm sure he's pleased to take any swipe he can.

    5. Re:Linux... by thue · · Score: 5, Informative

      There is a whole class of vulnerabilities related to maliciously crafted filesystem structures. You necessarily don't need to execute or open any files, you just need to try to mount it.

      There is another class of vulnerabilities related to the preview feature of some Linux file managers. So you don't even need to open any non-executable files to be vulnerable either.

      And then there if of course standard buffer overflows when opening non-executable files.

    6. Re:Linux... by echusarcana · · Score: 5, Informative
      This story is factually incorrect and refers to an incident a number of years ago. At the time of the infection, the system was running Windows XP.

      http://www.extremetech.com/extreme/155392-international-space-station-switches-from-windows-to-linux-for-improved-reliability

    7. Re:Linux... by mcgrew · · Score: 5, Informative

      TFA was bad, I read it. I wish I'd read it before I voted in the firehose :(

      Sorry, guys. That one line "As these systems are based on Linux, they are open to infection" discredits the author and the rest of the article. Since Windows viruses like the Stuxnet virus they say infected the station, Linux has nothing to do with it.

      Wondering if it even happened I googled. space.com:

      A virus designed to swipe passwords from online gamers has inexplicably popped up in some laptop computers aboard the International Space Station.

      The low-risk virus was detected on July 25, but did not infect the space station?s command and control computers and poses no threat to the orbiting laboratory, NASA officials said.

      ?This is basically a nuisance,? NASA spokesperson Kelly Humphries told SPACE.com from the agency?s Johnson Space Center in Houston

      According to a NASA planning document obtained by SPACE.com, the virus was identified as W32.Gammima.AG. The California-based retail anti-virus software manufacturer Symantec describes it as a Windows-based worm which spreads by copying itself onto removable media.

      It has nothing to do with Linux, TFA is either a troll or an MS shill. The submitter should be ashamed of himself for submitting such a piss-poor article (and I'm ashamed I voted before reading). TFA linked in the summary is garbage. It didn't even get the damned virus right. There are far better accounts, including the one I linked above.

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      Free Martian Whores!
    8. Re:Linux... by mcgrew · · Score: 5, Informative

      But I'm too lazy for TFA

      Don't bother, it's garbage. Linux has nothing to do with it, it isn't affecting C&C (NASA says it's simply a nuisance) and TFA got every single thing wrong. It's a worm, not a virus. They don't know how it got there, there are both Linux and Windows laptops up there and NASA says they have to check all the Windows (not Linux since it's a Windows worm) laptops for it.

      From now on I'm checking closer before voting stories up. Any story posted by DavidGilbert99 gets downvoted by me. David Gilbert, article author and submitter, is a troll. ibTimes should fire him, that article is pure unadulterated bullshit, see here.

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    9. Re:Linux... by roc97007 · · Score: 5, Informative

      If the author of the comments were as unbiased as you it might indeed mean that.

      However, he makes money telling Windows users they will be safe if they remember to pay him their fees. Not the same protection racket from the Linux crowd so I'm sure he's pleased to take any swipe he can.

      Very good point. And if the ISS was running Windows for Spaceships and got infected, it wouldn't even be news.

      --
      Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
  2. In space.... by cold+fjord · · Score: 5, Funny

    They say that in space nobody can hear you scream, but I'll bet they can hear you curse. #$%@#$%!!! MALWARE!!!!

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    much of left-wing thought is a kind of playing with fire by people who don't even know that fire is hot - George Orwell
  3. Awesome! by mythosaz · · Score: 5, Funny

    I can't be the first guy to read this today and go, "Seriously? We infected computers on the ISS? That's freakin' awesome."

    1. Re:Awesome! by GodfatherofSoul · · Score: 5, Funny

      We?

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      I swear to God...I swear to God! That is NOT how you treat your human!
  4. Re:Oh, the irony... by girlintraining · · Score: 5, Informative

    Not subtle enough. All you really need to do is drop the O2 Concentration by 2-3 percent while allowing CO2 to increase. Astronauts then make mistake that

    Stop. Please. There are independently-alarmed sensors on the ISS in each compartment that check oxygen and Co2 levels, and there are emergency scrubbers present. All they need to do is go to the storage compartment, pull out the cylinder, twist, and let it float there. It will, via chemical reaction, eat up several days worth of Co2. And these people are given oxygen-deprivation training prior to assignment; They're professionals. They will realize the problem even without all those safeguards.

    The risk is not to the people, the risk is to the equipment -- those SCADA systems control much of the automated systems on board, including thrusters that control yaw, roll, solar panel angles, etc. If you fuck with those, you could, say, twist up the solar panels like a cork and snap lines. You could disable the stabilization gyros and send the thing into a spin. Or you could just disable them at a key moment and allow the ISS to hit space debris -- it needs to adjusts its orbit on an irregular basis for just this reason. Even just tilting it so it's broadside with the sun and then disabling everything would be enough to bring it down in a few months if control couldn't be re-established... difficult if the thrusters were set to a mode where they burn fuel off as fast as possible at opposing points across the central axis, for example.

    No country down here has the ability to rapidly build, assemble, transport, and launch, required repair supplies in time to salvage it if someone were to do this. The ISS would de-orbit. But the risk to the astronauts lives? Low. Risk of damage to property on the ground? Middleish; The world still is mostly ocean afterall.

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  5. Re:Oh, the irony... by MachineShedFred · · Score: 5, Funny

    Wait, are you saying that a computer virus can't stop lithium hydroxide from chemically absorbing CO2?

    What a shitty virus.

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