A hacker has exposed serious vulnerabilities in NASA’s systems, highlighting ongoing cybersecurity challenges at the agency.
The hacker, who revealed this second breach on X, stated that he had reported the vulnerabilities to NASA, allowing the agency time to address the issues.
He wrote, “I hacked @NASA (again) and reported some vulnerabilities to them. Just today, I received this appreciation letter from them after they patched the loopholes!”
NASA responded by sending an appreciation letter to the hacker, signed by Mark Witt from NASA’s Office of Chief Information Officer. The letter acknowledged the hacker’s efforts in identifying the vulnerabilities and helping to protect NASA’s systems, thanking him for safeguarding the “integrity and availability” of its information infrastructure.
The letter read, “On behalf of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration and NASA’s Vulnerability Disclosure Policy (VDP), we would like to recognize your efforts as an independent security researcher, both in identifying the vulnerability you submitted and for following NASA’s VDP policy and guidelines in responsibly reporting this to us.”
Several users on X praised the hacker’s achievement, with comments like, “That’s worth at least as much as a degree LOL,” “good work mate,” and “Very nice, congratulations! Also very honest to report it to them.” Another user commended NASA for rewarding researchers rather than penalizing them.
In a humorous twist, one user joked, “They didn’t even give you a ‘I hacked NASA and all I got was this lousy T-Shirt’ Shirt?” while another said, “So hacking NASA is not just a meme haha, great job!”
In other news, theh SpaceX Crew Dragon capsule has successfully docked at the ISS and will bring NASA astronauts Sunita Williams and Butch Wilmore back to Earth in February 2025.
