Malware infects space station laptop
Malware has managed to get off the planet and onto the International Space Station, NASA confirmed today. And it's not the first time that a worm or virus has stowed away on a trip into orbit.
The attack code, which space news site SpaceRef.com identified Monday as "W32.Gammima.AG," infected at least one of the laptops used on the station, an international effort headlined by the U.S. and Russia.
NASA spokesman Kelly Humphries declined to identify the malware, saying only that anti-virus software detected a worm on July 25.
The first public report of malware about the ISS was logged earlier this month, on Aug. 11. In NASA's daily status report on the station that day, the agency said. Sergey Volkov, the International Space Station (ISS) commander, was "working on the Russian RSS-2 laptop" and "ran digital photo flash cards from stowage through a virus check with the Norton AntiVirus application."
A week later, on Aug. 21 Volkov "checked another Russian laptop, today RSK-1, for software virus by scanning its hard drives and a photo disk."
The next day, Volkov transmitted antivirus scanning results from the laptop to Earth, and American astronaut Greg Chamitoff scanned another computer for possible infection. NASA also said in Friday's report that all laptops on board the ISS were being loaded with anti-virus software.
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