And that word, `WANKED'. It did not make sense. What did it mean when a system was `wanked'?
It meant NASA had lost control over its computer systems.
A NASA scientist logging in to an infected computer on that Monday got the following message:
deleted file <filename1>
deleted file <filename2>
deleted file <filename3>, etc
With those lines the computer told the scientist: `I am deleting all your files'.
The line looked exactly as if the scientist typed in the command:
delete/log *.*
—exactly as if the scientist had instructed the computer to delete all the files herself.