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Rover Curiosity Hacked?
Mars Mission Rover Curiosity Hacked?
Rover Curiosity Hacked? NASA’s new report on the computing problem occurred with its Mars rover, Curiosity, has sparked a fire in the world. Many information security analysts are assuming that Curiosity computers were attacked by malware which hacked the functioning of the NASA’s Rover. In an interview with space.com, Mars Rover Curiosity project manager, Richard Cook said that there have been some problems with Curiosity which has caused damage to its flash memory. As soon as they figured out this problem, the rover was put to run into the “safe-mode” to stop it rebooting in loop. Lets check out why is it possible that the NASA’s Mars Mission Rover Curiosity can be Hacked.
Read: Red October Virus: The Silent Cyber Weapon
Curiosity, which was launched from the earth on 26th November 2011 to a mission on Planet Mars to analyze soil samples, landed on mars on 6th August 2012. Since then, it has faced many technical errors. But it is the first time when malware has been suspected behind the dis-functioning of the rover.
The NASA officials are analyzing the situation. Most of the scientists are blaming this on the excessive radiation caused by the cosmic rays. Mr. Richard Cook said “We are currently probing this glitch, but it seems like the cosmic rays penetrated the radiation-tolerant hardware of the Curiosity and caused harm to it. It is possible that these high energy particles caused the memory corruption”.
Why we believe that it was not just yet another so called Cosmic Ray attack?
We have some firm points on discarding this theory presented by the Marks Rover Project Manager; Richard Cook that radiation is behind this malfunction.
- First reason: When Curiosity was tested on Earth, It was tested to the maximum possible radiation that could come its way on Mars. There is no such news that a solar flare (Radiation) of that magnitude, which could penetrate the hard covered electronics of Mars Rover, was generated.
- Second Reason: Previously also Curiosity Rover showed odd behavior. Its Camera stopped working; it started rebooting without any command from Earth. That time also NASA officials blamed it on the Universal acts.
It can be possible that some hackers (Individual or organization) tried to disrupt its services in order to gain access to its sensitive information recovered from Planet Mars.
Also Read: How To Remove Virus From Windows
Recent reports have shown that many nations are capable of doing such attacks. Last year USA blamed China for the malfunctioning of its SPY satellite which was causing it to crash on earth. (Of-course the USA didn’t want its secret information get revealed, so they hit the satellite with missile and destroyed it).
Now the Mars Rover Curiosity is running on the “Safe Mode” and the scientists says that it will take them couple of weeks to get back started and reconfigured.
Author: Naveen Thakur
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