A virus designed to swipe passwords from online gamers has inexplicably popped up in some laptop computers aboard the International Space Station.
The low-risk
virus was detected on July 25, but did not infect the space station's command
and control computers and poses no threat to the orbiting laboratory, NASA
officials said.
"This is
basically a nuisance," NASA spokesperson Kelly Humphries told SPACE.com
from the agency's Johnson Space Center in Houston.
According
to a NASA planning document obtained by SPACE.com, the worm was
identified as W32.Gammima.AG. The California-based retail anti-virus software
manufacturer Symantec describes it as a Windows-based worm which spreads by
copying itself onto removable media. It is capable of stealing passwords for
online games and is classified as a very low risk, according to Symantec's Web
site.
Humphries
said that while NASA security protocols prohibit discussing details of the
virus and efforts to combat it, a search is under way to find out how it got on board the
space station more than 200 miles (321 km) above Earth.
"We'll do
our best to track down how it got there and close that gateway," Humphries
said. "This is not a frequent occurrence but we have had viruses that have made
their way on board before."
New flash
memory cards due to launch to the station aboard a Russian cargo ship next month
have been screened for the virus, the NASA document stated. Not all of the 71
laptop computers currently aboard the station run Windows, and those that do
and are vulnerable to viruses could be updated, it went on.
The space
station is currently home to three astronauts: Russian cosmonaut commander
Sergei Volkov, cosmonaut flight engineer Oleg Kononenko and NASA flight
engineer Greg Chamitoff. Volkov and Kononenko are due to return to Earth in
October, while Chamitoff is slated to stay until his replacement arrives during
NASA's planned November
space shuttle mission.
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