An audit document from the United States Office of Inspector General, published on June 18th, reveals the JPL (Jet Propulsion Laboratory), the commun laboratory of both NASA and Caltech (California Institute of Technology) based in Pasadena, had been suffering a cyberattack for 10 months last year.
The point of entry… a simple nano-computer Raspberry Pi installed without any authorization or security check in April 2018. It allowed the hackers to retrieve 500 Mo of data in 23 files (including information on the US International Traffic in Arms Regulations and on the Mars Science Laboratory mission) and to infiltrate in two of the three primary networks of the JPL.
The attack forced the Information Security Office of the Houston-based NASA Johnson space center (which manages the International Space Station and the future manned exploration vehicle Orion programs) to disconnect from the Deep Space Network between May and November 2018.