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-------------------------------------------------------------- This story was printed from ZDNet Australia. --------------------------------------------------------------
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Space virus infects orbiting laptops By Elinor Mills, CNET News.com August 28, 2008 URL: http://www.zdnet.com.au/news/security/soa/Space-virus-infects-orbiting-laptops/0,130061744,339291656,00.htm
At least two laptops on-board the International Space Station more than 200 miles above Earth have been infected with a virus. 
NASA astronaut Greg Chamitoff, Expedition 17 flight engineer, works with an experiment in the Kibo laboratory of the International Space Station. The worm, believed to be W32.Gammima.AG, steals personal information used to play online games from infected computers and then attempts to send the information back to a remote computer, according to SpaceRef.com, which broke the news on Monday. The virus was not the first to hit a space station last month, just the first one that was reported, NASA spokesperson Kelly Humphries told Wired News. He described it as a "nuisance" that infected computers that are mostly used for applications like email and not critical systems. Officials were trying to figure out how the virus got on-board. The space station has no direct internet access — astronauts send and receive mail through a KU band data link, according to Humphries. Reports speculated it may have spread via a USB memory device. The International Space Station is a collaboration between NASA, the European Space Agency, and the space agencies of Japan, Russia, and Canada.
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