NASA's Cybersecurity Under Fire: Hacker Exposes Major Flaw, Agency Responds

A hacker has claimed that he hacked NASA’s system and exposed some of the significant security loopholes. Moreover, he said that he has done it again, pointing out that he has done this for the second time. The hacker shared this on the social media platform X and shared that after discovering all the loopholes in the system, he reported all of this to the organisation, so that NASA can review them and solve them. 

And in response to his work, NASA sent him an official letter of appreciation, identifying his knowledge and also his contribution in noticing the weakness and helping them to protect the systems. This official letter of appreciation was signed by NASA’s Chief Information Officer, Mark Witt. NASA recognised the effort of the hacker was in the favour of the agency and played a significant role in safeguarding the “integrity and availability” of the information structure. 

Check Out the Viral Post:

The hacker, who goes by the username "@7h3h4ckv157,” shared the post on X a couple of days ago with a caption that said, “I Hacked @NASA (again) and reported some vulnerabilities to them. Just today, I received this appreciation letter from them after they patched the loopholes!”

And after this, the hacker was praised by NASA for identifying the vulnerability while following NASA’s Vulnerability Disclosure Policy (VDP). Moreover, he was also acknowledged for their work as an “independent Security Researcher.”

The letter of appreciation from NASA said that “Your reporting has facilitated NASA’s awareness of otherwise unknown vulnerabilities and help us protect the integrity and availability of NASA information. 

In the appreciation letter, NASA also said, ”Please accept this letter as a token of our appreciation for your efforts in detecting this vulnerability, and better enabling NASA to continue its advances in science, technology, aeronautics, and space exploration to enhance knowledge, education, innovation, economic vitality, and stewardship of the Earth. We are all in this together as a security community and your participation and expertise is commended.”

User Reactions to the Viral Post

One of the users said, “Congrats! That’s a massive personal resume builder —- on top of being vital to preventing someone else coming upon the same thought patterns and execution strategy as you. Might not have been a white hat hacker that time!”

Another one said, “Back in the 90s we used to root NASA subservers, install psybnc on It and go on IRC with our fancy *.nasa.gov bouncer. Their servers were like swiss cheese... Holes everywhere.”

“I would have thought a nice check would have been nice,” said a third one.