Stolen NASA laptop very capable of controlling the ISS

Oh man I wouldn’t want to be the person who last had this laptop in their possession and then had it stolen from them but one would have thought that, or at least hoped, that NASA would be keeping better control over their laptops.

It might not seem all that important but NASA has confirmed that the laptop that was stolen last year contained the control codes for the International Space Station.

Now before you go thinking that this might not be all bad because even NASA would be smart enough, and security conscious enough, to make sure that all the data on the laptop was at least encrypted – it wasn’t.

So somewhere out there is someone with a laptop that belongs to NASA and they have easy access to all of the data on that laptop, including the control codes. It also appears that this is not an isolated incident as NASA has also reported that between 2009 and 2011 some 48 NASA laptops have been reported stolen or lost.

In light of this news NASA Inspector General Paul Martin noted that in the last two years there has been more than 5,000 computer security incidents involving unauthorized access to NASA’s systems as well as malware infections.

via Geek.com