NASA’s Ingenuity Helicopter Is Not Susceptible to log4j Vulnerability

In this illustration, NASA’s Ingenuity Mars Helicopter stands on the Red Planet’s surface as NASA’s Perseverance rover (partially visible on the left) rolls away. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

NASA’s Ingenuity helicopter does not run Apache or log4j nor is it susceptible to the log4j vulnerability. NASA takes cybersecurity very seriously and, for this reason, they do not discuss specifics regarding the cybersecurity of agency assets.

The interruption in data communications between the Ingenuity helicopter and the base station on the Perseverance rover during Flight 17 occurred when the signal was blocked by elevated terrain between the two as Ingenuity descended at the end of the flight. Effectively, Ingenuity “flew behind a hill” or out of the rover’s line of sight, briefly interrupting high-speed communications between the two spacecraft.