NASA's servers on high risk by cyber attack
By siliconindia   |   Wednesday, 30 March 2011, 00:25 IST
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NASA's servers on high risk by cyber attack
Washington: The computer servers used by the space agency to control the spacecraft are not very secure to cyber attack, warned by Paul Martin, the inspector general of NASA. The inspector general said in an audit of NASA's network security that they have found that NASA's agency-wide mission network had high-risk vulnerabilities that were exploitable from the Internet. The report said that six computers servers associated with IT assets that control spacecraft and contain critical data, had vulnerabilities that would allow a remote attacker to take control of or render them unavailable. During the audit, NASA's computer security found that the encryption keys, encrypted passwords, and user accounts were more vulnerable to potential attackers. These data are sensitive and provide attackers additional ways to gain unauthorized access to NASA networks. A cyber criminal had infected a computer system of NASA in May 2009 stole 22 gigabytes of export-restricted data from a Jet Propulsion Laboratory computer system. After experiencing such cyber intrusions, Martin has warned the NASA authorities to keep a watch on their systems and make sure that the data is not been exploited. He warned that "until NASA addresses these critical deficiencies and improves its IT security practices, the agency is vulnerable to computer incidents that could have a severe catastrophic effect on agency assets, operations, and personnel." He has also recommended NASA to take actions to lessen the risks on internet accessible computers on its mission networks and carry out an agency-wide IT security risk assessment.

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