Day: March 3, 2012

If your space agency is not secure, what is?!? Well, NASA is not that secure apparently! (Maybe they should not use “Password1” as their passwords!) Just sayin’!

NASA Was Hacked 13 Times Last Year

“It seems not even the high-tech NASA is safe from digital intruders: The space agency’s computer systems were breached by hackers 13 times last year, according to Congressional testimony this week.

‘These incidents spanned a wide continuum from individuals testing their skill to break into NASA systems, to well-organized criminal enterprises hacking for profit, to intrusions that may have been sponsored by foreign intelligence services seeking to further their countries’ objectives,’ said Paul Martin, NASA’s inspector general, in his Congressional testimony released on Wednesday.

‘Some of these intrusions have affected thousands of NASA computers, caused significant disruption to mission operations, and resulted in the theft of export-controlled and otherwise sensitive data, with an estimated cost to NASA of more than $7 million,’ he continued.

Martin gave Congress detailed information about some of the attacks.

In one instance, the agency discovered late last year an intrusion into its system by hackers working through a China-based IP address. Martin said that the hackers gained full access to the network of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, allowing them to view, copy, delete and otherwise tamper with classified information.

Before closing the door behind them, the hackers uploaded software allowing them access to other NASA systems and managed to adeptly hide their digital tracks.

In a separate event, hackers managed to grab computer access codes from more than 150 NASA employees. According to Martin, the agency failed to move quickly enough to ensure that those hackers wouldn’t be able to use the codes to gain access to its networks.”

Test them now! Here’s how!

Test Your ISP – Are You Constrained?

This is a great series of tests to see if your ISP is limiting your bandwidth. Those “so-and-sos” may be constraining what YOU are paying for! Free yourself from bandwidth tyranny! (Hey, I get radical when it comes to my bandwidth!)

“If this is something that you are passionate about, you may consider joining one of the various net-neutrality groups around the internet. Again, a quick search for ‘net neutrality’ will return some great resources and groups to help you get involved in fighting things like ISP throttling.”