Thirteen times, sheeple!
(Reuters) – NASA said hackers broke into its computer systems 13 times last year, stealing employee credentials and gaining access to mission-critical projects in breaches that could compromise U.S. national security…
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He said they gained full system access, which allowed them to modify, copy, or delete sensitive files, create user accounts for mission-critical JPL systems and upload hacking tools to steal user credentials and compromise other NASA systems. They were also able to modify system logs to conceal their actions, he said…
(via)
Perhaps the Vatican would be willing to share some anti-hacking techniques, or at least recommend some competent consultants…
mcmillan
Republicans in the Washington state Senate are being assholes and taking over the Senate, with the help of (hopefully soon to be former) Democrats. The switchers gave the votes for the minority Republicans to try and submit their budget over the one the Dems were trying to put together, all being done without any hearings.
There’s also follow up info also on the Stranger’s main blog.
piratedan
well you see, that part of the funding to protect ourselves was deemed unnecessary by the happy folks in Congress, you know like why should there be any leftover money in the FEMA budget and such…
AA+ Bonds
Yes, hackers also broke into my system last year exactly VALUE.FUNDINGNEEDCALC times, so I will need some of that Cyber Security
AA+ Bonds
Impoverishing NASA is an extremely weird way to have a NASA
JoyfulA
Maybe it’s the Latin.
MikeJ
@JoyfulA: It’s a pain having to probe port MCCCXXXVII
AA+ Bonds
PROTIP: If you hack the Vatican, make gay marriage legal.
AA+ Bonds
Some Randall-Munroe-style dork probably left his Droid phone in the bathroom at a conference
Marcellus Shale, Public Dick
@AA+ Bonds:
well that, and putting some of the art for sale on etsy.
Origuy
1. Change the password for user “admin” to something other than “admin”.
2. Change the combination on the computer room door to something other than 0000.
HeartlandLiberal
All your space station are belong to us.
Waldo
(insert rocket scientist joke here)
Schlemizel
@Origuy:
I was responsible for base-wide security issues at Kennedy Space Center for a time in the 90’s. I’m not going to go into detail but Origuy is not far off on some of my recommendations at them at the time. The problem was I worked under a directorate that Did not have money to throw around and did was not directly involved in the maintenance or launch of space vehicles. I had no political weight to throw around. NASA was bullied and by its contractors (McDonald-Douglas, Lockheed) and got no cooperation from them – yes the tail wagged the dog there.
I began to believe the biggest part of my role there was to be the designated fall guy in the event of a public humiliation.
gnomedad
I saw a wingnut article somewhere blaming Obama for this. Seriously. Hell, he probably personally changed the password to “welcometerrorists”.
marcopolo
Well, since no one else has gotten around to it. Go Fringe reference! And Jeez, am I the only person at BJ that watches the show?
mm
I loved the Fringe reference too! But it should have been’Can We Blame Walternate?’
Uncle Cosmo
@marcopolo: Um, no, you’re not…but I haven’t been here very long so I guess I’m still only 3/5 of a ‘juicer in the cite sensus
(FWIW that would be alt-Astrid [Altstrid?] doing the hacking–she’s got the chops & the camos to pull it off.)
JGabriel
Reuters via Anne Laurie @ Top:
That’s it. I’m never giving anyone from NASA my debit card number again.
.
JGabriel
@mcmillan:
So, no different from Republicans everywhere?
.
cermet
The issue of such poor funding was NASA’s own fault – the shuttle was a total piece of crap from a cost to payload delivered to orbit aspect (that is really critical if you want to save $$$.) Letting the trained monkeys called astronuts dictate a launch system was fatal. Even the fuel (hydrogen/oxygen instead of a lower cost, higher performance kerosene/oxygen – can we recall that one shuttle, at least, would not have been destroyed if they didn’t use H2) for the shuttle was beyond stupid.
So, cutting corners to save a few $ relative to computer security is not surprising. NASA has no excuses but itself to blame for such boneheaded mistakes.
The list of fail on their part, added to a country that spends every dollar it can on a bloated defense system and a monster police state causing the average amerikan to feel taxed to death meant that NASA was doomed no matter; but they surely didn’t need to added so much fuel to the fire.
Auldblackjack
@mcmillan:
This is why so many people are ‘meh’ about Bob Kerrey. You can see him doing stuff like that from a mile away.
The Democrats need more party disipline. They need to make it clear that if a member is going to reap the benefit of being a member of the coalition, that member is expected to support the party on procedural votes and planks in the party platform. And a stab in the back will be returned in kind.
Schlemizel
@cermet:
NASA never wanted the shuttle. They wanted to build on the moon & work toward Mars. The STS was another Nixon ratfuck. He had promised a reduction of military spending with the wind down of Viet Nam and the STS was a way to deliver mil payloads to space & make the civilian agency pay the freight. The dumb-ass space station was a Reagan boondoggle, it came along as an after thought.
Ben Franklin
@Schlemizel:
I know the obsession with manned space flight started with Mercury 7, but what was NASA’s wish book? Manned SF is so impractical, illogical, to me.
Uncle Cosmo
@Schlemizel: Part of the “ratfuck” was hobbling the Space Shmatte with all sorts of design requirements needed for military missions & totally irrelevant to civilian ones. (The delta wing was the most obvious–the military required that the Shmatte be maneuverable enough during unanticipated descents to avoid “unfriendly” air space & landing sites.)