Thai freshman detects cybersecurity flaw at NASA

America's  National Aeronautics and Space Administration has thanked a Thai freshman at Khon Kaen University for detecting a cybersecurity flaw in the US space agency's computer system.

Khon Kaen University said on Tuesday that NASA had sent a letter of gratitude and praise to Thanapol Butsricha, a first-year student at its College of Computing, on Nov 5 for helping protect its data.

Mr Thanapol, who used the online name “nullbyt3z”, found a loophole in the cross-site scripting (XSS) type which allowed attackers to input harmful code scripts into webpages. He reported the finding to NASA through its official security channel.

“I am proud that my efforts over the past month help secure the systems of this world-class organisation," he said, admitting "it was difficult to detect a new loophole that no one else has spotted",

Khon Kaen University said the freshman's report was a “responsible disclosure”. He sent a direct report to the system owner without abusing his finding or disclosing it before the flaw was fixed.

Assoc Prof Phet Imtongkhum, head of cybersecurity courses at Khon Kaen University, said the finding reflected both the skill and the ethics of students at the College of Computing at the university.