Taruna Bhakti Vocational High School,Depok Obtains NASA Letters of Recognition

RRI.CO.ID, Depok - Rakha Hayya Ilhamsyah and Balqis Amanda Shifa Dewi from the Vocational High School of Taruna Bhakti, Depok, West Java, obtained letters of recognition from the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA). Both students successfully discovered a security gap in NASA's system.

“We identified a vulnerability in NASA documents and websites using the Google Docking method. We found that the vulnerability is known as ‘broken link checking.’ This process replaces old or dead links with new ones,” Rakha said, as quoted by a source from the Depok city government.

"To all my friends, keep up your enthusiasm for learning and don’t hesitate to give it a try,” Balqis said separately.

Meanwhile, Firoos Ghathfaan Ramadhan, a high school student from Subang Regency in West Java, also received a letter of recognition from the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) in April 2026. At the age of 14, Firoos received the letter after successfully discovering a security gap in NASA's digital system.

He made use of the agency's Vulnerability Disclosure Policy (VDP), under which the agency invites the public to report external system vulnerabilities in good faith. Firoos encourages young people to stay consistent with what they like and to explore unimagined talents.

Firoos, Rahka and Balqis, have proven that consistency and persistence will definitely produce great results. "In my opinion, the key is consistency. Then, try to discover your talents in fields you might not have thought about before... You might find something, and then you can develop it further and discover that you have real talent in that field," Firoos said.

"Well, I was with friends from the Spectra.id community—we were all together, quite a lot of us. We learned together, did Zoom sessions together. Then we got (the letter) at the same time," Firoos said, as sourced from his school, the Integrated Islamic Junior High School of Al-Alamy in Subang.

According to Indonesia's Government Communications Agency, Firoos acted as an independent security researcher, helping to identify potential vulnerabilities using Open Source Intelligence (OSINT), a method of collecting data from publicly available sources. No cash or compensation will be given, but NASA will send a letter recognizing their report, which is not all the reports considered by the agency.