The US National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) has praised a Thai university freshman for identifying a cybersecurity vulnerability in its computer system.
Khon Kaen University said on Tuesday that NASA had sent a letter of appreciation and recognition to Thanapol Butsricha, a first-year student at its College of Computing, on Nov 5 for helping protect the agency’s data.
Thanapol, who uses the online alias ‘nullbyt3z’, discovered a cross-site scripting (XSS) vulnerability that could allow attackers to inject malicious code into webpages.
He reported the security flaw to NASA through its official security reporting channel.
‘I am proud that my efforts over the past month have helped secure the systems of this world-class organisation,’ he said.
He also acknowledged that identifying a previously undiscovered vulnerability had been challenging.
Student follows responsible disclosure practices
Khon Kaen University described Thanapol’s report as an example of ‘responsible disclosure’.
He submitted his findings directly to the system owner without exploiting the vulnerability or publicly revealing it before the issue was fixed.
The approach allowed the organisation to address the security weakness before details of the flaw were disclosed.
University praises student’s skills and ethics
Associate Professor Phet Imtongkhum, head of cybersecurity courses at Khon Kaen University, said the discovery demonstrated both the technical skills and ethical standards of students at the university’s College of Computing.
