Detecting computer viruses spread ... ISS space station

The US Aeronautics Agency (NASA) has confirmed that a laptop brought to ISS in July was infected with a virus called Gammima.AG.

The virus was first discovered in August 2007 and lurks in infected machines to steal accounts of some popular online games.

NASA said that this is not the first time computer viruses have been "traveled" into space and they are investigating why the computer is infected.

Space threat?

ISS International Space Station. Photo: BBC On the space information website Spaceref revealed the story of a virus in a laptop that an astronaut brought to the ISS station. NASA told SpaceRef that no control system was threatened by any destructive program. The computer infected with this virus has been used to run a program that allows astronauts to periodically send email back to the earth.

This computer does not have any anti-virus software to combat virus intrusion. Once a login account appears, Gammima.AG virus will try to send them to the server. One of the goals of this virus is to account for the 10 most popular online games in the Far East such as Maple Story, HuangYi Online or Talesweaver.

NASA is working with partners on ISS to find this virus path into this laptop. At ISS there is no direct connection to the internet and every data stream from the ground to the spacecraft is checked before being transmitted.

It is thought that the virus was traveling to ISS via a memory device like a USB and an astronaut took it into space.

After this incident, the space agency also plans to establish a security system to prevent any possible future hazards.

Speaking in Wired News, NASA said that infected computers were brought into the ISS in many different ways, but they were only considered troubles.