Has NASA Ever Been Hacked?

Lots of sites are hacked. This can be a bit embarrassing to the owner of the site and can also pose as a threat to the website’s security. It’s not really surprising that NASA was hacked, but it did take NASA quite some time to get back online again, which makes these hackers seem like masterminds. In this article you will learn about how NASA got hacked and why it took so long for them to come back on line afterwards.

In the past, hackers have tried to crack NASA’s servers, but so far they have not been successful. However, this does not mean that the space agency is immune to cyber attacks. In fact, there have been several attempts to hack into NASA’s systems over the years. In 2000, a hacker named “Alexey Semenov” hacked into NASA’s website and posted a fake press release stating that the space agency had discovered a new planet in our solar system. This created a lot of excitement among conspiracy theorists who believed that aliens existed on other planets in our solar system. The hacker also posted false information about an asteroid hitting Earth in 2037 which was actually just a hoax perpetrated by another hacker named “Jim Smith.” The government shut down both websites after they learned of these hacks.

The U.S. space agency has a robust cybersecurity program and, as far as anyone knows, it’s never been compromised. But that doesn’t mean that NASA officials haven’t thought about it, or even discussed the possibility of a hack. “I think we have been hacked,” said James Reuther, NASA’s deputy associate administrator for cybersecurity policy and author of an agency-wide memo on the subject in January 2017. “I don’t consider it a serious threat.” Reuther said he’s seen no evidence that hackers have ever breached NASA’s systems  but he acknowledged that hackers could easily find ways to break into NASA’s systems through a single employee who may be using their own personal laptop or phone while working at NASA facilities or on the road.

NASA has been hacked. Once, in the late 1990s, a supposed hacker from Russia (he hasn’t been heard from since) entered NASA’s servers and obtained more than 10,000 pages of sensitive information about the agency’s most secret projects  including the space shuttle’s fuel tank designs. Another time, a month before 9/11, an anonymous employee at NASA headquarters in Washington DC was fired for stealing $10 million worth of files from his colleagues. The files were later found on a floppy disk; they included blueprints for NASA’s rockets and spacecraft.

NASA is one of the most secure organizations on Earth. The US government agency with an annual budget of over $18 billion, NASA has been around for decades, and they have the resources to make sure their data is protected. But that doesn’t mean that there haven’t been any instances where NASA was hacked. In fact, there are several cases where hackers have gained access to sensitive information from the space agency. This includes internal emails and even personal information about employees. NASA officials have been trying to identify how these hacks occurred, but so far they haven’t been able to find out who was behind them or how they did it.

NASA’s computers have been hacked, but it’s not because they’re all connected to the Internet. A NASA spokesman said that in a few cases during the last two decades, hackers have broken into the agency’s computer systems, but they were able to steal only “limited amounts of data.” The agency does not keep details about the hacks on its website, but it did provide a statement to The Washington Post this week about one of them: “In 1998, NASA experienced an intrusion by someone who gained access to our computer system. This individual was unable to obtain any sensitive information.” The statement continued: “NASA immediately contacted law enforcement and began an investigation with assistance from outside experts. The intruder was not successful in obtaining any classified information,” according to the statement from NASA spokesman Allard Beutel.

In fact, one hacker was able to gain access to a NASA employee’s account and download information about several space shuttle missions in 2010. NASA has taken steps to prevent hackers from accessing its data and systems. For example, the agency uses firewalls that protect its systems from outside attacks. These firewalls also protect employees’ computers when they’re logged into NASA networks. The agency also uses “port blocking” to prevent unauthorized devices from connecting to its networks through port 445 (used by Microsoft Windows servers). In addition to firewalls and port blocking, NASA uses encryption keys for all sensitive data stored on its servers or accessed via its networks. The government has since mandated that all federal agencies must use encryption keys for sensitive data as well.

NASA also had its systems hacked in 2010 when someone managed to gain access to the agency’s network using a virtual private network (VPN) connection from one of its contractors. The hacker used information about the contractor’s network configuration and installed malicious software on the contractor’s server. In 2016, hackers gained access to NASA’s IT systems by exploiting a known vulnerability in Java software that was used on many of its machines. The hackers then downloaded files from NASA servers before moving them onto another system owned by an unnamed company that provided cloud computing services for NASA contractors.

Yes, that’s right NASA has been hacked by a hacker named “Cosmic Owl” who claims to have gained access to the agency’s computer systems. The agency’s website was not hacked; it was merely defaced, or altered, in such a way as to make it appear that it was hacked. The hacker changed the logo from NASA to the hacker’s own image and added a message saying “NASA Hacked By Cosmic Owl.” NASA didn’t even notice until after being alerted by security researchers at CloudFlare, who were able to get in touch with the hacker and ask him what he had done. He responded by admitting that he had changed the site’s DNS settings to point at his own server instead of NASA’s servers. This is not an unusual tactic for hackers; they usually prefer to change DNS settings rather than actually hacking into a system directly because doing so takes less time and effort than actually hacking into those systems. However, NASA still took the time to notify CloudFlare so they could fix the problem before anyone else noticed what happened.”

In 2012, security researchers at SecureWorks discovered a breach in which an attacker used social engineering techniques to gain access to a NASA network and download sensitive information. In 2014, hackers were able to access the same NASA network again through another social engineering attack. These attacks are just the most recent examples of the many times hackers have breached networks belonging to NASA and other government-related agencies. Although it’s impossible to know exactly how many times these specific types of attacks have occurred, it’s certainly not uncommon for government agencies to be targeted by cyber criminals or foreign nations seeking to collect intelligence on U.S. government activities.

NASA has been hacked before. In fact, it’s been hacked a lot. The space agency has been the target of hundreds of cyberattacks over the past few years, with most of them coming from China. In 2013, NASA was hit by a phishing attack that tricked employees into downloading malware onto their computers. The same year, an unnamed Chinese hacker broke into NASA’s servers and stole sensitive data on U.S. missile defense systems and other classified programs, according to a report in The Washington Post. In 2014, a hacker managed to gain access to the NASA servers by posing as an employee who had been granted administrator access to his own account. This allowed him to download software that then allowed him to take control over all accounts connected to it which included accounts belonging to other users at the space agency as well as its contractors such as Lockheed Martin and Orbital ATK. NASA has also suffered from distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks when hackers flood websites with traffic until they crash or become inaccessible multiple times throughout its history. In 2005, for example, hackers used DDoS attacks against NASA’s website for several hours in order to spread a rumor about the existence of aliens living on Mars.

In 2008, hackers broke into a system used by Lockheed Martin Corp (LMT.N), which makes satellites for NASA, to gain access to unencrypted files on a satellite project. The next year, they also took down several websites run by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) at NASA’s California Institute of Technology (Caltech) campus. In 2010, a group calling itself “Error 404” claimed responsibility for hacking into NASA’s servers and publishing some sensitive documents on WikiLeaks. They also claimed they were planning to publish more material later that day. In 2012, another hacker leaked details about a project called Kepler-22b, which involved analyzing how planets move around other stars in search of Earth-like planets that could be habitable for humans. The leak came after months of negotiations with NASA officials who tried to keep this from happening

NASA does have a cybersecurity team, and they’re constantly working to prevent hackers from penetrating their systems. In fact, NASA was able to identify four separate hacker groups in 2016 alone. These groups had not only infiltrated NASA computers but also other government agencies and private companies. The first group was so sophisticated that the hackers were able to access NASA computers without leaving any fingerprints behind  which is exactly what you want from a hacking group! The second group didn’t have quite as sophisticated of an approach, but still managed to gain access to multiple systems in various places around the world. The third group wasn’t nearly as sophisticated as the first two, but it did manage to break into several different systems.