Saturday, October 25, 2008

Computer viruses make it to orbit


A computer virus is alive and well on the International Space Station (ISS).

Nasa has confirmed that laptops carried to the ISS in July were infected with a virus known as Gammima.AG.

The worm was first detected on Earth in August 2007 and lurks on infected machines waiting to steal login names for popular online games.

Nasa said it was not the first time computer viruses had travelled into space and it was investigating how the machines were infected.

Space news website SpaceRef broke the story about the virus on the laptops that astronauts took to the ISS.

Nasa told SpaceRef that no command or control systems of the ISS were at risk from the malicious program.

The laptops infected with the virus were used to run nutritional programs and let the astronauts periodically send e-mail back to Earth.

The laptops carried by astronauts reportedly do not have any anti-virus software on them to prevent infection.

Once it has scooped up passwords and login names the Gammima.AG worm virus tries to send them back to a central server. It targets a total of 10 games most of which are popular in the Far East such as Maple Story, HuangYi Online and Talesweaver.

Nasa is working with partners on the ISS to find out how the virus got on to the laptop in the first place.

The ISS has no direct net connection and all data traffic travelling from the ground to the spacecraft is scanned before being transmitted.

It is thought that the virus might have travelled via a flash or USB drive owned by an astronaut and taken into space.

The space agency also plans to put in place security systems to stop such incidents happening in the future.

Nasa told Wired News that viruses had infected laptops taken to the ISS on several occasions but the outbreaks had always only been a "nuisance".

AP


Users urged to report abuse sites


Web users are being urged to help spot illegal and obscene content online.

The Internet Watch Foundation (IWF) is running an awareness campaign to tell web users how to report images of child sexual abuse.

The campaign comes in response to IWF research which suggests 77% of people who find illegal content do not know how to report what they have seen.

Banner adverts, e-mail messages and information pages are being used to educate people about how to report.

Sarah Robertson, a spokeswoman for the IWF, said that in 2007 the organisation handled 34,781 reports from members of the public who stumbled across illegal content.

While some find links to illegal content from legal pornographic sites many people accidentally stumble across such material too, she said.

Many sites hosting images of child sex abuse were run by organised crime gangs who charged for access. As commercial concerns, she said, many advertised their wares via spam campaigns.

"People might get unsolicited e-mails and not know where the link leads and could end up somewhere they did not want to be," she said. "The message is that it's important that they do report it to us."

Illegal content, be it images of child sex abuse, obscene pornography or race hatred, can be reported by clicking a big red button on the IWF home page.

Those finding illegal content can report what they have found anonymously or can leave contact details if they want to find out what has been done about the pages they found.

Many other sites are running banner adverts, circulating e-mail messages and placing notices on intranets inside organisations letting people know how to report what they find to the IWF.

The IWF monitors publicly viewable illegal content and relied on members of the public to alert it to the new sites traffickers in child sex abuse imagery have set up.

Ms Robertson said the work of the IWF had led to less than 1% of child abuse image sites being located in the UK.

The organisation produces a list of sites known to host illegal material that is circulated to net suppliers to ensure that UK users cannot reach these sites.

Ms Robertson cautioned concerned net users to leave it to the IWF to chase and shut down sites hosting illegal content.

"It's an offence to seek out this content to view it for any reason," she said. "It's against the law."

Reuters