Astronauts aboard the International Space Station (ISS) took some time to update their orbiting laboratory's antivirus software to ensure their laptops are safeguarded against intrusions like one caught in July.

Russian cosmonaut Oleg Kononenko spent some time today updating the antivirus protection software on laptop computers in the station's Russian segment, said NASA spokesperson Kelly Humphries at the agency's Johnson Space Center in Houston.

The activity is one that would be familiar to computer owners on Earth with machines that use constantly updated commercial antivirus software, he told me.