Hacked NASA Sites Still Down

[google-translator]

On September 11, a Brazilian hacker took down fourteen NASA Ames Research Center websites, replacing them with the message:

NASA HACKED! BY #BMPoCWe! Stop spy on us! The Brazilian population do not support your attitude! The Illuminati are now visibly acting!

Obama heartless! Inhumane! you have no family? the point in the entire global population is supporting you. NOBODY! We do not want war, we want peace!!! Do not attack the Syrians.

Within hours, the message had been removed, to be replaced with a standard “down for maintenance” message. The targeted sites include . Eight days later, these sites are still inaccessible; there is no work from NASA on the cause of the delay.

The motives of the hacker are unclear: it has been proposed that the hacker intended the message for the National Security Administration (NSA) and confused the two acronyms, while others think NASA’s lax cybersecurity makes it an inviting target. In point of fact, the same hacker was traced to an attack against NASA in April of this year.

There is no word as to when the sites, which include Kepler, planetary protection, and lunar mission sites, will be back up.

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Merryl Azriel

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Having wandered into professional writing and editing after a decade in engineering, science, and management, Merryl now enjoys reintegrating the dichotomy by bringing space technology and policy within reach of an interested public. After three years as Space Safety Magazine’s Managing Editor, Merryl semi-retired to Visiting Contributor and manager of the campaign to bring the International Space Station collaboration to the attention of the Nobel Peace Prize committee. She keeps her pencil sharp as Proposal Manager for U.S. government contractor CSRA.

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