Month: July 2023
NASA’s Voyager 2 Is Experiencing an Unplanned ‘Communications Pause’
A routine sequence of commands has triggered a 2-degree change in Voyager 2’s antenna orientation, preventing the iconic spacecraft from receiving commands or transmitting data back to Earth, NASA announced earlier today. Mission controllers transmitted the commands to Voyager 2 on July 21. Gizmodo reports: Voyager 2, one of two twin probes launched in the 1970s to explore planets in the outer solar system, is located some 12.4 billion miles (19.9 billion kilometers) from Earth and is continually moving deeper into interstellar space. The glitch has disrupted the probe’s ability to communicate with ground antennas operated by the Deep Space Network (DSN), and it’s unable to receive commands from the mission team on Earth, NASA explained.
The communications pause is expected to be just that — a pause. Voyager 2 is “programmed to reset its orientation multiple times each year to keep its antenna pointing at Earth,” the space agency says. This procedure should — fingers crossed — re-establish the lost connection and allow routine communications to resume. The next reset is scheduled for October 15, which is 79 days from now. Undoubtedly, this will be 79 agonizing days for NASA and the Voyager team. Despite the current communication hiatus, the mission team remains confident that Voyager 2 will stay on its planned trajectory. Voyager 1, situated nearly 15 billion miles (24 billion kilometers) away from Earth, “continues to operate normally,” NASA added.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
A routine sequence of commands has triggered a 2-degree change in Voyager 2’s antenna orientation, preventing the iconic spacecraft from receiving commands or transmitting data back to Earth, NASA announced earlier today. Mission controllers transmitted the commands to Voyager 2 on July 21. Gizmodo reports: Voyager 2, one of two twin probes launched in the 1970s to explore planets in the outer solar system, is located some 12.4 billion miles (19.9 billion kilometers) from Earth and is continually moving deeper into interstellar space. The glitch has disrupted the probe’s ability to communicate with ground antennas operated by the Deep Space Network (DSN), and it’s unable to receive commands from the mission team on Earth, NASA explained.
The communications pause is expected to be just that — a pause. Voyager 2 is “programmed to reset its orientation multiple times each year to keep its antenna pointing at Earth,” the space agency says. This procedure should — fingers crossed — re-establish the lost connection and allow routine communications to resume. The next reset is scheduled for October 15, which is 79 days from now. Undoubtedly, this will be 79 agonizing days for NASA and the Voyager team. Despite the current communication hiatus, the mission team remains confident that Voyager 2 will stay on its planned trajectory. Voyager 1, situated nearly 15 billion miles (24 billion kilometers) away from Earth, “continues to operate normally,” NASA added.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
New phishing campaign targets Twitter Blue users amid X rebrand confusion
Twitter Blue subscribers are being targeted with fake migration service amid company rebrand to X.
A new phishing campaign is targeting Twitter Blue subscribers amid the social media platform’s messy transition to X, and the consequences could be catastrophic.
Twitter owner Elon Musk and new CEO Linda Yaccarino hope that the platform will soon become X, but the transition has been anything but smooth, with rebranding at the HQ going, well, not to plan. Furthermore, the discrepancy between the website and mobile apps is giving some users a complete headache.
Hoping to capitalize on this confusion, one threat actor is offering Twitter Blue subscribers to transfer their membership to X, but all this does is give the cybercriminal access to a user’s entire Twitter account.
Twitter Blue/X phishing emails
To an unsuspecting target, the email looks to come from a legitimate source, with the display name showing ‘sales@x.com.’ The email passes SPF authentication checks despite actually coming from mailing list platform Sendinblue (now known as Brevo).
A screenshot of the email posted by Twitter user @fluffypony claims that a victim’s “existing subscription is nearing its expiration and requires migration,” with a link directing users to a completely legitimate API authorization page. The fact that it’s legitimate means that, upon approval, the threat actor then has access to a user’s Twitter account.
Along with a few view-only capabilities, the API allows the threat actor to amend follwers, update profile and account settings, post and delete Tweets, engage with other Tweets, and more.
Fortunately, revoking API access is fairly easy on Twitter, by navigating to Settings > Security and account access > Apps and sessions > Connected apps.
Checking these settings is generally a good idea whether you have been targeted by this phishing attack or not, purely in the interest of good Internet hygiene. For those not quick enough to disable the dodgy service, it’s unclear what the result could be. In the worst-case scenario, they could be locked out of their account with any manner of activity going on, in which case they may want to consider using identity theft protection software.
Check out our roundup of the best firewalls