[ISN] Web browser control brings hijacking threats to spacecraft

[William Knowles <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>]

http://www.newscientist.com/news/news_224641.html

New Scientist magazine, 08 July 2000

IN A WEEK when NASA revealed that a computer hacker interrupted
communications on a space shuttle mission in 1997, a new space
research project has been launched which could give hackers the
ultimate kick: control of a spacecraft.

Surrey Satellite Technology, a space science company based in
Guildford, has been commissioned by NASA to investigate how satellites
can be controlled using cheap Internet technology. SST's SNAP-1
experimental satellite, launched last week from the Plesetsk
Cosmodrome in Russia, may be the first satellite to test Internet
control technology, says Chris Jackson, SST's ground station manager.

But the idea of Web browsers being used to control spacecraft raises
the spectre of hackers taking the controls. This week, NASA official
Roberta Gross told BBC TV's Panorama programme that a malicious
computer user struck as the shuttle docked with Mir in 1997. The
hacker so overloaded NASA computers that transmission of data on
astronauts' vital signs was "delayed". Fail-safes cut in and NASA says
no harm was done.

Most satellites communicate with Earth using expensive software that
is custom-written for each mission. But using Internet protocols--in
which data is sent and received in packets that are recognised by most
computers--could make space-flight control much cheaper, Jackson says.
The technology could also allow satellite operators to access
spacecraft at any time, from any PC, anywhere.

But opening up satellites to the Internet will make hacking into the
system a real concern. NASA says that it has had 500,000 hacking
attempts on its computers in the past year alone--but Jackson says the
SST study will be addressing the security issues.


*-------------------------------------------------*
"Communications without intelligence is noise;
Intelligence without communications is irrelevant."
Gen. Alfred. M. Gray, USMC
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