
NASA appreciates the hacker, who claims he hacked the space agaency and reported vulnerabilities. In response, the hacker recieved an official letter of appreciation, for recognizing their assistance in identifying weaknesses and helping protect NASA’s systems.
An acknowledged hacker claimed to have ruptured NASA’s system again, for the second time, revealing critical security vulnerabilities. The hacker explained that after exposing the loopholes, they reported the issues to NASA and allowed sufficient time to resolve them.
As a fact considered, NASA sent an official letter of appreciation to the hacker, as the situation helped NASA in recognising their assistance in identifying weaknesses and helping protect NASA’s systems. The letter was by Mark Witt, NASA Office of Chief Information Officer. The space agency acknowledged that the hacker’s actions contributed to 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.”
The incident led to discussions about the role and knowledge of ethical hackers in securing sensitive systems. Many social media users appreciated both the hacker’s ethical approach and NASA’s response. One user commented, “Good on NASA for rewarding security researchers rather than punishing them with legal action—it’s really in their best interest.”
“They didn’t even give you an ‘I hacked NASA and all I got was this lousy T-Shirt’ Shirt?” a user joked.
Another user wrote, “So hacking NASA is not just a meme haha, great job!” A fourth user stated, “That’s worth at least as much as a degree.”