North Korea Hacked India's Moon Mission

North Korean hackers have reportedly attacked Indian space agency systems. According to cyber experts, the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) was attacked by hackers when it was on its mission to land a spacecraft on the Moon. 

India’s ambitious mission had attempted a historic soft landing on the lunar south pole region.

The country’s mission to the Moon faced a setback when a control station in the southern Indian city of Bengaluru lost contact with the Chandrayaan-2 spacecraft in September just minutes before its landing on the Moon. The reports said an ISRO staff member is feared to have opened phishing emails from North Korean spammers.Such phishing emails caused the accidental installation of malware on to their systems.

According to a Financial Times report, ISRO was warned of the cyberattack during the Chandrayaan-2 Moon mission. ISRO insisted that its computer systems and networks had not been ‘compromised’ by the attempted hacking. The space agency will now have to examine the possible threat from North Korean spammers.

Indian officials have denied that a cyberattack affected the Moon mission, which ended after ISRO lost contact with the spacecraft.

The latest news has emerged after India’s largest nuclear power plant admitted it had been attacked by hackers. Indian authorities admitted there had been a cyber-attack on the Kudankulam nuclear power plant, located in the southern Indian state of Tamil Nadu. However, the hackers were found to have targeted an administrative computer.

Last month, the US space agency NASA found no trace of Chandrayaan-2’s Vikram lander in the latest photographic  images captured by its Moon orbiter of the lunar south pole region. 

Eastern Eye:         Image: ISRO

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