| By Rick Savoia,
on Wednesday, 27 August 2008 
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Views : 12 |
Published in : Blogs, Rick Rant |
Think you can escape the evil of malware infestations by leaving the planet? Think again. Malware can be found anywhere now, even in space. Computerworld posted an article today revealing that astronauts on board the International Space Station discovered it on one of their laptops, and according to NASA, apparently it is not the first time. The malware was allegedly identified as W32.Gammima.AG by SpaceRef.com. it was discovered by Russian astronaut Sergey Volkov last month. Volkov was scanning flash cards for viruses on a Russian laptop when the worm was found. According to the International Space Station Daily Report for Friday August 22, NASA reported the space agency uploaded Norton AntiVirus to the space station the day before to install on the laptop and remove the malware. "All A31p laptops onboard are currently being loaded with latest NAV software and updated definition files for increased protection", NASA said in the report. Of course, the worm didn't originate off-world, it was carried up there, but that makes it all the scarier. The simple truth is that when it comes to avoiding badware, there really is no escape. There is a lot more we can say about it all, but the only thing I really want to know is this. Why Norton? Surely NASA could do better than that. No wonder we haven't sent a man to Mars yet. I know NASA is on a budget and they are not exactly in the anti-malware business, but Norton? Sheesh. I hope it wasn't the trial version.
Then again, if they are using Norton, that means they are also probably using Windows. Hmm. On second thought, Is this something we really want to know?
Last update: Wednesday, 27 August 2008
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